


This house don't feel like home

by eliseboobman (bechloehuh)



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, F/F, because it's a damn apocalypse and walkers don't give a shit who they eat, clarke is oblivious for a while, i'm gonna try and weigh out the angst with clexa fluff, lexa is ferociously in love with clarke, there will be minor character deaths also
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-07-23
Packaged: 2018-07-19 07:39:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 30,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7352017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bechloehuh/pseuds/eliseboobman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“It’s not the first she’s heard of it. The ‘outbreak’, as people are calling it, has been around for a few weeks now. Her mom had told her that it was nothing to worry about, but part of her still believed something bad could happen.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Still, it kind of shocks her that it’s all happening so fast. She’s not sure how long it’s been since they first officially announced it, but it doesn’t feel like it’s been long at all. It kind of seems too fake for Clarke to get too worked up about. She just wants to get back to her dorm so she can nap.”</i>
</p><!--?p?--><p>Clarke embarks on a thousand mile journey from Florida to Chicago to find her mother, Lexa will go anywhere as long as she’s with Clarke, Octavia and Raven are badass zombie slaying girlfriends, and Bellamy never puts his damn gun away.</p><p>Zombie apocalypse AUs are still a thing, right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“ _There are a million ways we should’ve died before today. And a million ways we can die before tomorrow. But we fight for every second we get to spend with each other. Whether it’s two minutes. Or two days. We don’t give that up._ ” –Riley Abel, The Last of Us

* * *

** 10th December 2015 **

She’s driving home from her last class of the day when she realizes it’s worse than she thought.

She hears the news on the radio, of all places.

(She never listens to the radio.)

The announcement mentions something about staying indoors, not going outside unless absolutely necessary, getting treatment if you’re sick, and they mention something about the fact that they don’t know whether it’s a virus or some sort of microbe in the air; all they know is that it’s spreading fast. And – the worst advice they could possibly give – if you see anybody acting strange, don’t report it as the authorities can’t do anything anymore.

It’s not the first she’s heard of it. The ‘outbreak’, as people are calling it, has been around for a few weeks now. Her mom had told her that it was nothing to worry about, but a small part of her had still believed something bad could happen.

Still, it kind of shocks her that it’s all happening so fast. She’s not sure how long it’s been since they first officially announced it, but it doesn’t feel like it’s been long at all. Two weeks maybe. It kind of seems too fake for Clarke to get too worked up about. She just wants to get back to her dorm so she can nap.

She’s had a long week.

She manages another ten minutes of listening to The 1975 while sitting in traffic before she hears the sirens. Not long after that, there’s a helicopter above them. Then the screams come. And it’s not right. It’s all going too fast. Suddenly it’s anarchy. Suddenly it’s not a quiet Thursday evening.

Suddenly she’s scared.

There’s a woman getting out of the car in front of her, and Clarke doesn’t really want to look behind her, afraid of what she might see if she does. The woman looks scared; her eyes darting everywhere as she tries to take in her surroundings, to try and understand what the hell is going on. Clarke wonders if the woman is aware of the warnings. She wonders if the woman has any family outside of Florida. Someone who could be sick for all she knows. Clarke’s pretty sure there’s been some cases in Atlanta and New Orleans. They happened way before the virus reached Gainesville.

She decides to ignore the part of her brain telling her to panic, and she continues to listen to her music, adamant on getting home where it’s safe.

“Come on,” she whispers to herself through clenched teeth, praying to God that the traffic will start moving again.

She hopes her roommate is in when she gets back. They’re not exactly close but it’d kind of suck if Lexa died.

She’s just about to get out of the car herself to see what the holdup is, when she feels her phone vibrating on the dashboard.

“Lexa?” She answers, sighing in relief when she hears Lexa greet her. She’s never been as happy to hear her voice.

Lexa’s asking her if she’s okay and if she’s heard the news or seen the videos on the internet, and she’s talking really fast and she sounds worried. It’s not often that Lexa expresses her worries, but Clarke can’t help but notice just how shaky her voice is. And she’s only known Lexa for a few months, but she knows her enough to know that she’s concerned.

She tells Lexa that she’ll be back soon and to stay inside.

Lexa tells her to be safe and there’s a tense silence on the other end for a few more seconds before she hangs up.

It’s another half hour before Clarke finally makes it home.

She’s sprinting into her apartment building as fast as she can. So fast that she almost misses the body bag on the ground outside, and the three medics surrounding it. She doesn’t think too much about it though. It could very well not be related to the virus at all.

She tells herself anything to make this sound fake.

It has to be fake.

She takes the stairs instead of the elevator, two at a time until she reaches the third floor, and she’s out of breath by the time she makes it to hers and Lexa’s room. She takes her keys out of her bag and opens the door, sighing in relief when she sees Lexa looking out of the window.

Lexa turns around, immediately moving to stand in front of Clarke.

“Are you okay?” She asks her, putting her hands on Clarke’s shoulders as she looks her up and down. “Did anything touch you?” She puts her hand on Clarke’s forehead. “Do you feel sick?”

Clarke shakes her head, grabbing Lexa’s hands and moving her head so she can look her in the eye. “What’s going on?”

Lexa opens her mouth to say something but stops. She doesn’t quite know what to say. She’s not sure what’s going on herself, if she’s honest. She was scrolling through Tumblr – procrastinating her criminal justice assignment – when she saw the video. A video of a man in Tampa being shot multiple times, falling over backwards only to get back up and launch himself at the police officer who was nearest to him.

She had saved the video, so she untangles their hands and goes to get her phone off of her desk, bringing it up and holding it in front of Clarke. She stands next to her so she can watch it again. She’s not sure why she does. Maybe she wants it to convince her that this _ isn’t _ all a hoax. That this is happening and it’s real and it’s very, very dangerous.

She watches Clarke too. Watches how her eyes and mouth widen, and she brings a hand up to cover her mouth as she takes the phone off of Lexa and replays it.

“This can’t be real,” Clarke says, shaking her head. “This is impossible.”

Lexa rolls her lips, clenches her teeth, and tries her hardest to stay put together.

In reality, she’s more scared than she lets on.

“What do we do?” Clarke asks, giving Lexa her phone back. The only thing Lexa can manage is a shrug, because she really doesn’t know.

She doesn’t know what this all means. She doesn’t know whether to take it as seriously as other people seem to be taking it. Doesn’t know whether she should pack her things up just in case they have to move somewhere before the building becomes unsafe to live in. Doesn’t know whether or not she should stay with Clarke or try and make it all the way to her uncle in California in one piece.

“I have to call my mom,” Clarke says, putting her backpack on her bed. She roots through it for her phone but immediately starts to worry when she doesn’t find it. She checks her pockets, before patting herself down to see if she’d stuffed it in her bra like she usually does, but it’s nowhere. “Fuck”

“What’s wrong?” Lexa asks. Clarke tells her that she must have forgot her phone in her car, and Lexa immediately offers hers. Clarke takes it with a small thank you, glad that she knows her mom’s number by heart. She dials the number, lifting the phone up to her ear as she anxiously chews the nail on her middle finger.

Lexa watches as Clarke paces around the room, and she sits down on her desk chair as she opens Tumblr on her laptop to see if there are any more pictures or videos. There’s nothing there except a few people reblogging a post that says to stay inside and don’t leave until you know it’s completely safe.

“Mom?” Lexa looks up at Clarke, and she sees the relief spread across her face, only it dissipates a few seconds after and she’s saying “Mom? Hello?” repeatedly, until she groans in frustration.

“What happened?”

“Cut off,” Clarke says, passing Lexa her phone back. Lexa watches as Clarke pulls her gym bag out from under her bed, and she immediately stands up.

“What are you doing?”

“I have to get to my mom,” Clarke says, putting the bag on her bed before walking over to her closet and pulling out half of her clothes. “I have to get to Chicago. I need to see if she’s okay.”

“How do you expect to get to Chicago from here? It’s over a thousand miles.”

“I don’t know. I’ll drive.” She goes to her dresser and pulls out all of her underwear, stuffing it into her gym bag with her other clothes before zipping it closed.

“Clarke, just stop,” Lexa says, reaching out to hold onto Clarke’s arm. Clarke pulls away though, and the glare she gives Lexa is enough to make her take a few steps back. “Clarke, you can’t drive all the way up to Chicago from here. It’s not safe.”

“I need to get to her,” Clarke whispers, her voice cracking, and Lexa’s face softens when she realizes that Clarke has tears in her eyes. “I need to make sure she’s okay.”

Lexa rolls her lips again, looking Clarke up and down before she walks over to her and puts her hand on Clarke’s shoulder.

“Clarke,” she whispers, and her heart breaks when Clarke looks up at her. Her tears are falling freely down her face and she looks so young. So small. So scared.

So instead of saying anything, Lexa wraps her arms around Clarke, letting out a heavy breath of air when Clarke melts into her. She strokes Clarke hair, closing her eyes as she rests her chin on the top of Clarke’s head. She can’t exactly stop Clarke from leaving, but she’ll be damned if she lets Clarke go alone. She has nobody else who needs her, so she may as well stay with Clarke.

Clarke pulls away from her, wiping her eyes when she’s calmed down a bit.

“We’ll just wait it out for a bit,” Lexa says, reaching out to push Clarke’s hair away from her face. “We’ll see what the news says in the morning, but I think you just need to rest.”

Clarke sniffs up, and Lexa knows that she’s tired because she doesn’t argue. Instead, she nods her head and sits down on her bed, placing both hands at her sides as she stares ahead of her.

Lexa hates seeing Clarke like this. She’s only ever seen Clarke cry twice, but nothing compares to right now. Clarke looks empty. She looks like she’s giving up already, but Lexa will be damned if she lets that happen.

Lexa kneels down in front of her and puts her hands on Clarke’s knees, waiting until Clarke looks at her.

“We’ll get to her,” Lexa says gently, giving Clarke her best ‘it’s going to be okay’ smile. It’s not much but she’s trying.

Clarke just nods, and she asks Lexa to put some music on in the background to drown out the occasional yells and the sound of sirens coming from outside of their dorm building. Lexa complies immediately, plugging Clarke’s iPod into the dock and putting Clarke’s ‘songs to fall asleep to’ playlist on quietly.

As she waits for Clarke to fall asleep, Lexa sits at her desk and puts her phone on charge. It’s on 40%, but she’s not going to risk it dying in the middle of the night.

She thinks about the past four months she’s known Clarke. She had moved in before Clarke, a week or so before college started, and for a while she thought that maybe she would have the room to herself. That was, until someone had started to bang on the door relentlessly on the fifteenth when she was reading, and she opened the door to see Clarke stood with both arms full of vinyl CD’s.

Clarke had introduced herself as she dropped the CD’s onto the empty bed, asking Lexa if she minded helping her bring her things up from her car. Of course, Lexa hadn’t minded. It took her aback though, because she wasn’t expecting to live with someone as beautiful as Clarke. Literally from the first five minutes of meeting Clarke, Lexa was sure she was in deep.

Which was proven over and over, again and again, for the past four months, until one night a month ago when Clarke had brought back some guy named Finn and Lexa was seething. She knew immediately why she was so angry. She knows jealousy when she feels it, and she’s not exactly one to deny those facts to herself. She knew then – and she accepted – that she had a crush on Clarke.

Maybe it’s more than a crush now. Maybe it’s developed into something more. She doesn’t really know.

All she knows is that if she lets Clarke leave on her own to find her mother, Lexa will never forgive herself.

Clarke’s iPod is in the middle of playing In My Veins when Lexa hears a scream from outside.

She’s on her feet immediately, looking outside just in time to see a man pushing a girl over. She frowns, moving the curtain to the side and leaning her forehead against the glass to get a better look. It’s only then when she notices all the blood on the girl’s neck, and the way she’s limping towards the boy; no matter how many times he pushes her away, she still tries to get to him.

“Clarke!” she tries to yell it, but it comes out in a strained whisper, and she has to say Clarke’s name a few more times before she eventually hears her.

She stirs in her sleep, turning over from where she’s facing the wall.

“What?” Clarke says, and Lexa looks away from her, looking out at the couple outside, before looking back.

“Get over here. Quick.”

Clarke’s eyes open, and she yawns as she slips out of bed slowly, and it’s not until Lexa grabs her hand and pulls her to the window, that Clarke realizes where she is and what’s going on.

“What…” She trails off, scowling as she looks outside. And Lexa watches her. Waits for a reaction. Waits for Clarke to realize that it’s not, in fact, safe to go outside on her own.

And then Clarke suddenly gasps, throwing a hand over her mouth as she steps back, and she squeezes Lexa’s hand. Lexa hadn’t even realized they were still holding hands, but she doesn’t think about that. Instead, she closes her eyes and she wills for this to all go away. For it to be a dream. Because the girl outside is kneeling over the boy, ignoring his screams and pleads for help, as she bites at his neck and his face.

Clarke is breathing heavily, and she lets go of Lexa’s hand to run to the bathroom. Lexa follows instantly, wincing when she hears Clarke start throwing up into the toilet. She helps Clarke by pulling her hair back and rubbing her shoulders, already having done this many times before when Clarke comes in drunk after nights out.

“Fuck,” Clarke whispers, spitting into the toilet before standing up and flushing it. She moves over to the sink, splashing her face a few times with the water and drying off with the towel.

“Are you okay?” Lexa asks, and Clarke turns around, shaking her head.

“No. Are you?”

“No.”

Clarke takes in a deep breath before walking out of the bathroom – Lexa following behind her – and she’s ready to walk back to the window and look outside when she feels Lexa’s hand on her arm.

“Don’t,” Lexa says, eyes flicking to the window before looking back at Clarke.

“What do we do?” Clarke asks. “Do you think Raven and Octavia are okay?”

Lexa nods immediately, though she’s not quite sure. She’s only met Raven and Octavia once, and that was when Clarke had gone out drinking with them. They couldn’t be bothered walking back to their dorm building because they were drunk, so they crashed in hers and Clarke’s room on the floor. They seemed nice, though Lexa didn’t really pay much attention. Clarke had respected her and kicked them out early the next morning.

She thinks Clarke appreciates her reassuring her though, because her face seems to soften, as she nods in agreement.

And that’s when the power goes out. The quiet music stops, Lexa’s lamp flickers off, and the light from the hall outside goes out.

“Shit,” Lexa whispers. “Can you get me my phone?”

Clarke does as she’s told, using the moonlight shining through the window to help her see, as she rummages around Lexa’s desk for her phone, before passing it to Lexa.

“Good thing Gustus bought me all these candles, right?” Lexa says, attempting to lighten the mood as she uses the light on her phone to locate her candles. She picks up the box of matches from the shelf and lights a few of them. It doesn’t make the room  _ that _ much brighter, but at least it’s something.

“Where  _ is _ your uncle?” Clarke asks her, and Lexa sits down on her bed before looking up at Clarke.

“California.”

“Do you think it’s safe there?”

“I…” she shuts her mouth, shrugging as she shakes her head. “I don’t know,” she mumbles.

Clarke sits beside her, quite close but not enough to be touching.

“Don’t you want to know if he’s okay?”

“He’s an adult, I’m sure he’s fine.”

“And your parents?”

“Already dead.”

“Oh,” Clarke moves closer and puts her hand on Lexa’s thigh, squeezing it softly. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Lexa swallows. “They died when I was really young.”

“Do you have any other family members?”

Lexa is thankful that Clarke doesn’t pry.

“Just me and my uncle. And my two cousins, Anya and Aden.”

Clarke nods, and Lexa swallows before putting her hand on top of Clarke’s, using the pad of her thumb to stroke Clarke’s knuckles. She looks up at her, giving her a small reassuring smile.

“We’re gonna find your mom, Clarke.”

* * *

** 11th December 2015 **

When Clarke wakes up, it’s because of the sun shining through the window.

She stirs a little, pressing her face into the pillow before blinking her eyes open fully. It’s only when she smells the pillow – it smells like Lexa’s mandarin and lemongrass body wash – that she realizes she’s not in her own bed. She sits up, groaning at the ache in her neck. Lexa is sitting at her desk, her arms crossed on the surface as she hunches over and rests her head in them. She looks like she’s sleeping.

Clarke pulls the covers off of herself, getting out of bed before moving over to Lexa.

“Hey,” she puts a hand on Lexa’s shoulder, jumping when Lexa immediately sits up, looking around the room hastily. “It’s me,” Clarke whispers, putting her other hand on Lexa’s opposite shoulder, leaning down to look Lexa in the eyes. “It’s just me.”

Lexa breathes out a sigh and Clarke moves her hands away, watching as Lexa yawns and stretches her arms in front of her.

“Did you sleep here all night?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” Lexa says. “I checked the internet for any more news when you fell asleep.”

“And?”

Lexa stands up, picking up her phone. She tells Clarke that the internet was down but she managed to use the data on her cell to check the news sites. She pulls them up, handing her phone to Clarke.

“They’re everywhere,” she whispers, and Clarke’s eyebrows knit together as another video plays on Lexa’s phone.

This time, there’s at least eight of them. The ‘infected’, it explains on the website. They’re walking towards the camera man slowly, all groaning with blood around their mouths. It’s bad quality but Clarke knows a zombie when she sees one. The video cuts off when the person holding the camera falls backwards.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” she murmurs under her breath, giving the phone back to Lexa and turning around to go to her half of the room. “What time is it?”

“Just turned ten.”

“We need to get out of here, right?” Clarke says. “We have nothing, Lexa. We’ll die up here.”

Lexa doesn’t even seem to think it over, which shocks Clarke a bit. Instead, she nods her head and tells Clarke to pack her essentials, and then she’s pulling one of her duffel bags from where it hangs in her closet and she gets to work packing her things.

Clarke does the same, taking out some of the clothes that she packed yesterday. She’s not sure she needs them all; she’ll need room for some of the food that she has stashed in her top desk drawer for emergencies like this.

She packs a pair of gloves, her dad’s watch, her lighter, a travel first aid kit, and her Swiss army knife (a gift from Bellamy on her first day. He’d given one to Raven and Octavia too, for safety precautions.) She also gets the stash of food; a few granola bars, three bottles of water, some soda cans, five chocolate bars and a few bags of chips.

Turning around, she watches just as Lexa comes out of the bathroom, handing Clarke her toiletry bag, with a few bars of soap that weren’t there before. She smiles as a thank you, stuffing them into her bag. She grabs some clean clothes and tells Lexa she’s going to change, before going into the bathroom to do just that.

She can hear the faint sound of a car alarm, and she sighs, not really knowing what to think. Not knowing whether to panic or not; to be scared or not. She had seen exactly what had happened on the videos, and even what happened to the boy outside. Part of her never wants to leave. Part of her wishes she could stay here forever with Lexa, both of them staying unaware of the dangers that lie outside.

This whole situation is just bizarre.

One minute she’s almost falling asleep in her art class, thinking about the Christmas party the art department is hosting next week, the next minute she’s in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.

Okay, she’s not going to use those words. It isn’t the apocalypse. There’s only been a few cases of it going around. Or maybe more than a few. Either way, she’s not going to panic. Not just yet.

She finishes up getting dressed, leaving her dirty clothes in the hamper next to the shower. She looks in the mirror and sighs at the state of her hair. There’s two bands around her wrist – there always is – so she holds her hair up and puts it in a bun, not worrying too much about looking decent.

She walks out of the bathroom, smiling when she sees Lexa sitting patiently on the bed, looking at her phone.

“Clarke,” Lexa says when she notices that Clarke has finished. She stands up, immediately showing Clarke a text she had just received.

** Raven Reyes: ** Hey lexa this is raven, clarke’s friend. Is clarke with you? I’ve tried calling her but she won’t pick up and we’re worried

** Raven Reyes: ** please god tell me she’s with you

Clarke’s eyes widen, taking Lexa’s phone off of her as she reads back over the texts.

“Do you mind if I call her?” she asks, and Lexa nods straight away. Clarke sighs in relief, immediately pressing the call button.

Raven picks up on the second ring, and Clarke lets out the breath that she had involuntarily been holding.

_ “Lexa?” _

“Raven? Oh, thank  _ God _ you’re okay,” Clarke smiles, “Are you okay? Is Octavia with you?”

_ “Jesus Christ Griffin, we thought you were dead.” Clarke can hear Raven smiling. “Octavia’s here. We’re with Bellamy and a few others.” _

“Who else is with you?”

_ “Uh, Lincoln, Murphy, Jasper, Maya, Miller, and Monty. Are you safe?” _

“Yeah I’m with Lexa,” Clarke says, walking over to pick her jacket up from where it’s hanging on the hook on the door. “Just Lexa. Listen, I’m coming to you, okay?”

_ “No, it’s dangerous. Have you seen it out there?” _

“I’ll be fine.”

Clarke can hear the others asking Raven what’s going on, what she’s planning to do, and if she’s okay.

_ “Clarke, people have died.” _

“I know.” Flashbacks of the man being eaten alive last night play in her brain as she puts her jacket on the bed, before sitting down and putting her combat boots on. She swallows. “I need to get to my mom, Raven.”

_ “Clarke.” _

“You can’t stop me.”

_ “She’s a thousand miles away.” _

She shakes her head. “You can’t stop me,” she repeats.

She hears Raven sigh, and Clarke tells her that she’s coming to her dorm building, and she’ll text her when they’re outside, and then she hangs up.

She thanks Lexa, giving her the phone back before picking her jacket up and putting it on.

“Are we going there then?”

“Yeah,” Clarke nods. “Are you okay with that?”

Lexa nods, picking up her duffel bag and throwing it over her shoulder, wearing it like a backpack. She’s ready to open the door and face what’s out there before she hears Clarke say her name. She turns around.

“Are you okay?” Lexa asks.

“Do you think there are any out there?”

Lexa licks her lips, and she looks around the room. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know what the hell they’re getting themselves into by walking out of the door. Doesn’t know what will face them when they get outside.

“We’ll find out,” Lexa says, before putting her hand on the door handle.

“What do we do if there is?” Clarke asks. “Kill them?”

Lexa shakes her head. “No. We just run.”

Clarke takes a deep breath.

“Okay. Open it.”

Clarke’s not sure what she expects to happen when Lexa opens the door. For someone to barge past the door straight away and kill them? For there to be a pile of dead bodies outside? For the corridor to be flooded with blood a la The Shining? She’s not sure.

So she’s surprised when there’s nothing there.

No dead bodies, no blood, and certainly no one barging past doors and killing people.

Lexa looks back at her and gives a small, timid smile, before fully opening the door and walking out into the corridor. It’s quiet. So quiet that Clarke thinks maybe this whole ‘end of the world’ thing is one big misunderstanding. Or maybe that’s just false hope. She follows Lexa down the hall after locking the door behind her, hoisting her bag up onto her shoulder like Lexa had done.

The power is still out, meaning they can’t take the elevator, so Lexa turns around and motions towards the stairwell, before slowly walking towards it. And Clarke expects something to jump out at them but once again, there’s nothing here. It feels like they’re the only two people in the whole building.

They make their way down the three flights of stairs, stopping when they get to the door that separates them from the outside.

“You okay?” Lexa asks her, and she nods, pressing the button that unlocks the door.

It’s strange, how calm everything seems to be.

There’s still a few car alarms going off, and Clarke can hear the faint sound of helicopters flying above them, but other than that, it’s completely silent.

Clarke hoists her bag up again when it starts to slip from her shoulder, watching as Lexa leads them both outside. She has to stop herself from throwing up again when she sees the man from yesterday. He’s laid on his back, clearly dead, with chunks of his neck, head and stomach missing. Clarke just looks away from it, shuffling forward so she’s standing beside Lexa.

She doesn’t realize she’s started to hold Lexa’s hand until she starts pulling her along.

She doesn’t let go though. Afraid that if she does, she’ll lose her. Afraid that maybe she’ll get distracted by something and Lexa will leave, and then she’ll be out here all by herself. She tries not to notice how tight Lexa is holding her hand as she leads the way, eyes darting around for anything unusual. She knows Lexa’s scared too. She’s just better at hiding it.

It’s a ten minute walk to Raven and Octavia’s dorm building, and after seeing a few more dead bodies on the floor – she did actually throw up at one of them this time, when she saw that it was still moving – she’s glad to see Raven’s face looking out of the window.

Luckily Raven and Octavia live on the bottom floor, so even though there’s a crashed car in front of the building, blocking the exit, they can still get in by climbing through the window.

“ _ God _ , am I glad to see you,” Raven says when Clarke passes her bag through the window. Raven takes it from her, putting it down on the floor before taking Lexa’s bag too. She greets Lexa with a smile, and Clarke can hear the others talking from inside.

She lets Lexa go in first, Raven helping them both through the window before quickly shutting it and closing the curtains.

Octavia greets her with a hug, pulling her tight against her as she whispers that she’s glad she’s not dead. And she’d smile, if she wasn’t so aware that they could have actually died on the way here. The others give her hugs too, until they’re all kind of standing and sitting around awkwardly. Bellamy goes to sit back down on the floor with Murphy and Lincoln. Jasper, Maya and Monty are sitting on Octavia’s bed, with Miller sat in between Monty’s legs, and Raven and Octavia go to sit back down on Raven’s bed.

“So,” Raven says, “what’s the plan, Griff?”

Clarke opens her mouth to talk, but shuts it when she realizes that she actually doesn’t have a plan. She doesn’t know whether it’s safe enough to drive up to Chicago, and she certainly doesn’t have the essentials to walk from Florida to Illinois, so she’s not exactly sure.

“I don’t know,” she says, looking at Lexa for a split second before looking at the rest of the group. “I haven’t got one.”

“Well, you’ll need a gun man, right?” Bellamy says, smiling at Clarke. She looks at him, seeing that he and Lincoln have their uniforms on, and they have two guns each; a handgun and a bigger one, which she thinks are hunting rifles.

Then he picks up a duffel bag full of different weapons; pistols, shotguns, sniper rifles, assault rifles, and knives, along with ammo and binoculars.

Clarke’s eyes widen.

“We went to the police station before we came here,” Lincoln says. “It was completely empty. Not a single officer in sight.”

“Pretty scary,” Bellamy says as he puts the bag back down. “They’ve probably gone to find their families or something. Luckily we had the key to the armory so we took what we could.”

“No guns,” Lexa says quietly, and everyone turns to look at her.

“What?” Bellamy asks.

She shifts awkwardly on her feet, crossing her arms over chest shyly. “Guns will attract them.”

“ _ Them _ ?” Raven asks, standing up.

Lexa nods at Raven. She has her arm around Octavia who is sitting down; Raven stroking her hair as Octavia hugs her waist. Clarke would mention the fact that they’re both gross, but she’s in too much shock about this whole situation to even mention anything.

“They’re attracted to sound. The…  _ infected _ .” Lexa shrugs. “Whatever you want to call them.”

“ _ People _ ,” Bellamy says, and Clarke scoffs.

“They’re not  _ people _ , Bellamy. They’re monsters.”

“They’re  _ sick _ ,” he argues back.

“They died and came back to life. They’re  _ not _ people.”

“Clarke–“

“–Have you seen one?” Bellamy scowls and shakes his head, looking down at his shoes, and Clarke nods. “Yeah, well I  _ have _ . I’ve seen a woman ripping out some innocent man’s throat in two seconds flat, so don’t tell me that you think they’re  _ people _ because they’re  _ not. _ ”

Raven reaches out to touch Clarke’s arm, but Clarke flinches away, moving to stand next to Lexa.

“I’m with Clarke,” Murphy says, putting a hand up. Everyone looks at him, and only then does Clarke realize that he has a bandage around his forearm.

“Have you been bit?” She asks, sighing in relief when he shakes his head.

“I caught my arm on a piece of metal on the way here. Octavia stitched me up.”

Clarke looks over at Octavia, nodding her head as a thank you. She’s not sure why she feels the need to thank her, but she does anyway. She doesn’t really want any of her friends dying any time soon.

After Clarke asks the others if they’re all okay coming up to Chicago with her – and after they all tell her that they have nowhere else to go – they collectively decide to stay in Octavia and Raven’s dorm for another night until they have a plan. They have enough food and water to last a couple of days, and Lexa had packed her candles, so they scatter them around the room and light them when night falls. Although the electricity is still on in their building, they decide against leaving a light on, in case it attracts any unwanted visitors.

Raven and Octavia sleep in Raven’s bed, Bellamy and Murphy sleep on the airbed that Raven keeps in her closet, and Murphy makes an effort to lighten the mood by saying ‘no homo’, which pulls a few laughs from everyone. Monty and Miller sleep on one sleeping bag, Jasper and Maya sleep on another, and Lincoln has a sleeping bag to himself that he had retrieved from the trunk of his car. Which leaves Clarke and Lexa sleeping in Octavia’s bed, which shouldn’t be too much of a big deal but to Lexa, it certainly feels like it.

Clarke is in bed first, and Lexa slips into bed next to her, noticing just how small the bed is. And she clears her throat a few times, hardly even breathing because Clarke’s butt is touching hers, and okay, it isn’t a big deal. But she still can hardly breathe. She’s nervous. She’s not sure what of though. Maybe she’s anticipating something. Anything, to let her know what Clarke is thinking.

“Are you okay?” Clarke asks her, and Lexa swallows the urge to tell Clarke that no, she’s not okay. 

She’s terrified. Terrified of what’s going to happen tomorrow, or the day after, or a few weeks from now. But the weird thing is, she’s more terrified of the thought of not being with Clarke than being eaten by the undead.

Which just shows that she needs to get her priorities straight, but she doesn’t really care.

“I’m fine.”

Clarke’s her priority now.

“Good night then,” Clarke says. 

Lexa sighs.

She opens her mouth, closes it, pauses, and opens it again. “Good night, Clarke.”


	2. Chapter 2

“ _It's not about surviving. It should be about love. When you know love...that's what makes this life worth it. When you live with it every day. Wake up with it, hold on to it during the thunder and after a nightmare. When love is your refuge from the death that surrounds us all and when it fills you so tight that you can't express it._ ” - Carrie Ryan, The Forest of Hands and Teeth

* * *

 

**12th December 2015**

The first time she wakes up, it’s to the feeling of Clarke shifting behind her. She immediately notices the arm around her waist, and she tries to stay calm. But Clarke is spooning her, and she can’t help but shiver at the feeling of Clarke’s breath on her neck.

She’s sure this girl will be the death of her.

She falls asleep after her heartbeat has slowed down, smiling into her pillow when she feels Clarke pull her closer, and for the first time in her life, she falls asleep happy.

The second time she wakes up, it’s because of a tingle in her fingertips, which slowly starts to spread up her entire arm. At first the happiness dissipates and she immediately thinks that maybe she’d been bit and this is how it feels to turn, but then she realizes that she must have turned over in her sleep, and it’s Clarke who’s causing the weird feeling. She has her entire weight on Lexa’s arm, and Lexa can’t help but sigh, because of all the ways she pictured sleeping in the same bed with the girl she liked, she never would have thought this would happen.

The movies make sleeping in the same bed with someone look so much easier than it actually is.

She shifts, trying to pry her arm free from under Clarke without waking her. It takes a few nudges and shoves, but she eventually pulls away and turns around, clenching her hand a few times to shake the numb feeling away. Her eyes drift closed again once her arm has regained feeling, and she falls asleep again with Clarke pressing against her back.

She wakes up again a few hours later, but this time because of the sound of another alarm going off outside, and there’s a slight breeze coming through the window. She looks up, seeing Lincoln stood at the window smoking a cigarette. She should go back to sleep but she can’t seem to stop her mind from racing already; from thinking about how worried she should be that Gustus or Anya weren’t answering the phone when she tried calling them multiple times yesterday, or from wondering what their plan for today is. They can’t just sit around and wait for this to pass, as much as she’d like to. So after another five minutes lying in bed, she gets up; trying not to wake Clarke in the process.

“Hey,” she whispers, standing beside Lincoln as she looks out of the window. He smiles at her, that gentle friendly smile that she’s seen a few times. He’s taken his shirt off so he’s now in just a grey tank top, and Lexa sighs when she looks at the cigarette in his hand.

Lincoln sees her look at it, and he smiles as he offers her it. She should turn it down, but she takes it, smiling instead of saying thank you. She puts it up to her lips and breathes in, her entire body relaxing at the sensation. She takes two more drags, before holding it out for Lincoln.

“Keep it,” he whispers, smiling down at her. “Looks like you need it more than me.”

She nods, taking another deep drag before slowly breathing out, watching as the smoke disappears out of the window. She does everything she can to get the least amount of smoke into her lungs. As much as she knows death is inevitable, she does think it’d be ironic if she were to get lung cancer in the middle of the fall of civilization.

“What do you think caused it?” Lincoln asks her in a quiet whisper, and she shrugs, flicking some of the ash outside.

“I don’t know. People say it was a science experiment gone wrong. Part of me is still hoping it’s all a hoax.”

“But the videos.”

“I know,” she nods. She doesn’t want to believe it’s real but she _does_ , and it _is_.

“Could be a government conspiracy.” Lincoln turns around so his back is leaning against the window, looking down at Lexa with soft eyes. He always looks so kind.

“You think this is Donald Trump’s fault or something?” she asks with a smirk, tone light.

“Maybe. You never know with that guy. Hopefully he’s already food for worms.”

She laughs, agreeing with a nod. “Could be a new disease, like mad cow or something?”

“Airborne toxins?” He asks.

“Some sort of virus, maybe. Something we’ve never seen before.”

“Could be aliens.”

Lexa laughs at that. She supposes it doesn’t hurt to have a sense of humor, even if the world _is_ going to shit.

She finishes off the cigarette before throwing it out of the window. She sighs, looking outside at the abandoned cars.

“The world sucks,” she whispers.

Murphy wakes up next. He stumbles to the toilet to pee before coming out and yawning loudly, waking up Bellamy in the process. The rest of the gang start waking up one by one not long after, with Clarke being the last to wake up.

Lexa greets her with a smile when she wakes, and Clarke smiles back at her. It’s only a small interaction, but it keeps Clarke going. She kind of needs someone to keep her sane right now, and she’s really glad that Lexa is here.

She thinks about what they should do next. If they should formulate a plan to get up to Chicago. Maybe they could drive up there. She, Lexa, Raven, Jasper and Maya can fit in her car, Octavia has a motorbike that she could ride beside the car on, and Murphy, Monty, and Miller can go with Bellamy and Lincoln in their squad car.

They’ll need supplies though, if they want to last more than a week. Which means hitting up the local stores near the University, which Clarke already feels uneasy about. She’s not sure what’s going on out there. Doesn’t know whether there’s riots; doesn’t know if it’s safe enough to wander around just yet.

Clarke’s thoughts are interrupted by Lexa’s hand on her arm, and she looks at her with questioning eyes. Lexa asks her if she’s okay, and she’s about to say yes when she realizes that not really, she’s not okay. She’s not sure what words can be used to describe their current situation, but ‘okay’ is definitely not one of them. She hopes her eyes can get across to Lexa what her mouth cannot say. That she’s scared. Disoriented. That she wishes she could wake up and this would have all been a dream. That she doesn’t want the world to go to shit. At least not this fast, anyway.

Lexa’s response comes in a small, sad smile, which breaks Clarke’s heart. Lexa feels the exact same way.

She really wishes this wasn’t happening.

They’re all sitting in silence, listening to the irritating sound of another car alarm going off, when Raven suggests getting some supplies from the superstores. “There’s a Target down past 34th street. It’s about an hour and a half to walk it. And a Kmart in the opposite direction,” Raven says. “We can split up and meet back here after we’ve got supplies.”

“I agree,” Bellamy chimes in. “At least then we’ll be able to wait it out for a few days. Weeks, if we have to,” he then looks over at Clarke. “Then we’ll go to Chicago. When we know it’s safe.”

Everyone seems to agree, and they’re all up and ready before Clarke even has a chance to respond.

They split up, like Raven said, the teams being led by the ones with the guns. Clarke, Murphy, Monty, Miller, and Bellamy in one group. Raven, Octavia, Lexa, Jasper, Maya, and Lincoln in the other. And Clarke has to stop herself from trading someone in her group with Lexa, because she really doesn’t want Lexa to leave her right now, even though she knows that she’ll be safe with Lincoln.

She swallows that feeling though, and tries to ignore the way her heart pounds when Lexa gives her a small, sad smile.

“Don’t shoot unless you have to,” Clarke tells Bellamy and Lincoln, and Bellamy rolls his eyes as he tells her not to worry.

Which is stupid. She always worries.

Raven hands them all some bags; some of them are cheap plastic bags, some are worn down backpacks, and some are trash bags. Lincoln also hands everyone a small knife each, telling them not to be stupid with them.

They all pile out of the window one by one, and Clarke stops as she waits for Lexa to get out. She pulls her to the side once she’s outside, looking up at her with scared eyes, and her heart clenches when she sees that Lexa looks equally as scared.

“Be careful,” Clarke whispers.

Lexa looks down at the hand that Clarke has tangled in her own. Clarke didn’t realize she’d grabbed it. Instead of pulling away though, she squeezes it a little harder. Maybe it’ll get across to Lexa that she’s worried.

“Don’t worry,” Lexa says, as if reading her mind. She says it with a reassuring smile as she rubs her thumb across Clarke’s knuckle. “I’ll see you soon.”

Clarke suddenly gets the urge to throw up, because this is real, and so terrifying. She’s never looked at someone and known that they might not ever see each other again. That thought alone makes her want to hug Lexa hard. To kiss her forehead or her cheek and tell her that she’s glad they’re here together.

Instead, she takes a deep breath and nods, letting go of Lexa’s hand. They hold eye contact for a few more moments until Raven shouts to Lexa, gesturing for her to follow. It’s when Clarke watches Lexa walk away from her that she realizes she’s not scared about what will happen to herself out there. She’s scared of anything happening to Lexa.

//

Clarke realizes just how hot it is outside when they’ve been walking for fifteen minutes, and she’s sweating by the time they make it up 50th.

Below the sirens and the car and house alarms blaring, she can hear the faint sound of shouting and screams, and even the occasional sound of glass smashing. There isn’t much to see around them, except sometimes she sees someone running up the road with something over their face, and it makes her think that maybe they should be doing that too. Other than the occasional couple of people running past them, sometimes yelling obscenities, there’s nobody else around.

The scary part is, the roads are already blocked off by abandoned cars – hundreds of them – and it makes Clarke feel uneasy. It’s like everyone has simultaneously decided to just up and leave, with no remnants of life remaining save for the people who have started to riot.

It makes her think that maybe they’re walking towards the worse of it.

They walk for another five more minutes when Clarke sees a man slumped against a car, dry blood around his mouth and no right arm. She tightens the grip she has on her knife. There’s a piece of scaffolding going right through his stomach, pinning him to the car. It’s not until he starts moving that Clarke remembers that they can still be alive, even with a torn off limb and scaffolding going through them.

“Bellamy,” she whisper yells, catching up with him. “There’s one there,” she says, pointing over to wear he is with her knife. Bellamy follows her hand, scowling before looking down at her.

“He’s dead,” he says, keeping his gun pointed forward.

“He’s moving.”

“He can’t get us, princess.”

Clarke rolls her eyes and breathes out a heavy breath.

She fucking hates that nickname.

She wishes she could have saved the man. Wishes there was any way to make sure he’s okay, but she knows deep inside her that there’s nothing she can do now. She knows that he’s one of them. Infected. A zombie. Walker. Undead. Whatever they’re called. So she carries on walking alongside Bellamy, trying not to think about how they seem to be walking towards the noise.

They walk for another half hour, or what feels like it, when Clarke looks behind her to see someone walking towards them. Murphy is at the back of the group, with Monty and Miller in front of him, and Clarke waves to him before motioning behind him. He turns around, and she watches as he picks up his pace, trying to get as far away from the person – or whatever it is – as he can.

She watches him pick up a crowbar that’s lodged in one of the car tires. She’s not sure why, because he has a knife in his back pocket, but she doesn’t question him. They just wait as it walks closer to them. They’ve all stopped now; all waiting for what’s going to happen when it reaches them.

“Murphy,” Bellamy warns, but Murphy ignores him, holding the crowbar tightly in his hands.

And then it stops.

Clarke focuses her eyes. She recognizes the hair and the worn out shoes and the small scar on the girl’s face. She’s pretty sure the girl is in her art history class.

“Harper?”

She looks up, and Clarke takes a few steps forward.

“Clarke,” Murphy warns, standing in front of her with the crowbar ready to strike, but she pushes him away as she tries to get a better look at the girl.

“Harper, it’s me. Clarke.” She has her arms crossed over herself, with nothing but a pair of ripped jeans and a tank top on. She looks freezing, even in the Florida heat. “Hey. Are you okay?”

“Clarke?”

Clarke smiles, walking over to Harper as she takes her jacket off. She gently puts it on Harper’s shoulders, smiling at her when she says thank you.

“What are you doing out here alone?” Clarke asks, her hand on Harper’s arm. “It’s not safe.”

“I was with Monroe,” Harper replies, and Clarke recognizes the name from one of her classes. “And a few other people. There was a group of the, um… whatever they’re called. They attacked us. We didn’t know what was happening. Clarke, there was so much blood.” She has tears in her eyes, and Clarke nods in understanding.

“Hey, you’re safe now,” she says, rubbing Harper’s arm. “Are you hurt? Did you get bitten or scratched or anything?”

Harper shakes her head, bringing a hand up to wipe her eyes. That’s when Bellamy clears his throat, and Clarke realizes that they should probably get moving.

It probably isn’t the best idea, to take in someone new when there’s already enough of them, but none of the others seem to argue, and Harper is her friend. So she pulls Harper along and tells her about their plan. Tells her that there’s more of them, and that they have a safe place to stay for as long as they need to, and they’re going to get more food and supplies in case they end up holed up for weeks.

And she still can’t believe this is happening. Not until she watches Murphy, with her own two eyes, kill one of the infected by jamming the crowbar into its skull. She angrily wipes the tear that had fallen down her cheek with the back of her hand and picks up her pace. She manages to choke back her vomit though, which makes her think that maybe she’s going to be okay for now.

//

Lexa and the rest of the group manage to make it to Target in one piece, but not before seeing a few of the undead pinned to neglected cars with scaffolding through their stomachs. Not a pretty sight, Lexa thinks, but it was only a matter of time before she’d witness something of that horror. She just wasn’t expecting it to be so soon. Sure, there’s been warnings for a few weeks now, but it seems like the whole world has gone to shit in a matter of forty eight hours, and it’s terrifying.

There’s no authorities around anymore. Abandoned police cars and ambulances litter the streets, along with abandoned buses and cars and motorbikes. And not to mention the dead bodies.

So many dead bodies.

There’s some kind of riot going on outside of the store, but luckily they manage to make it inside, slipping in through the back where one of the emergency doors has been broken into.

Lincoln steps in first, looking around before turning and gesturing for them all to come in. Lexa takes a second to think about Clarke; to wonder whether they made it to Kmart safely.

God, she hopes so.

The riots – or whatever is going on – aren’t as bad as Lexa had expected them to be. Sure, there’s people running around, smashing windows and shouting at each other, but she realizes that although it’s scary, nobody is really bothered about _them_. The rioters are just doing their own thing. They’d probably only notice her if she tried to steal something from them, which Lexa won’t be doing any time soon.

She’s still scared, but it’s too late to turn back now.

It’s a grab-what-you-can type situation when they get in there. There’s not much left to choose from, so they all get to work immediately; all staying relatively close together in case somebody – or some _thing_ – tries to kill one of them. That’s probably why none of the rioters are bothered about them, because they’re in a fairly big group. If Lexa was alone, she’s pretty sure she’d be dead by now.

She stuffs a few cans of peaches and pineapples into her bag, looking behind her to see Jasper sweeping almost a whole shelf of rice and pasta into a trash bag. She turns back around, picking up almost every tin left on the shelf before they move on to the next aisle.

They manage to get quite a lot, thankful that they weren’t too late. Mostly food that’ll last a while and a few medicines which Raven had grabbed, and a few other supplies to keep them going. They have a bag full each, and Lexa even manages to grab a few art supplies for Clarke, before they leave the store and set off back to Raven and Octavia’s place.

//

Clarke’s group are the first to make it back, only 3 of them with a trash bag full of food.

They were the unlucky ones that got caught in the middle of, what Clarke guesses was, a turf war. A fight broke out just as they managed to fill three bags, which led Bellamy to leading them out to safety as flares and smoke bombs were being thrown around haphazardly. And they were lucky, because the store went up in flames minutes after they got out. Clarke likes to think that’s God’s – or whatever higher power is up there – way of letting her know that she’s not going to be dying any time soon.

She waits at the window when everyone has climbed through it, looking out for any sign of Lexa and the others. She shouldn’t worry. Lincoln will keep them all safe, she knows it. She’s just a little anxious. She doesn’t want them to come back without Lexa.

That might just be the thing that kills her.

“Clarke.”

She turns around to see Bellamy looking at her.

“I see you’ve finally holstered your damn gun,” she mutters before turning back around.

Bellamy breathes out a laugh as he walks up to stand beside her. “Lincoln’s one of the best cops I know,” he says, moving the curtain a little to look outside. “He’ll be able to handle it. Don’t worry.”

She nods at Bellamy, looking back outside and sighing in relief when she sees the group heading towards them. She slips out of the window, running up to Lexa and smiling when Lexa notices her. She’s not sure why she feels the need to greet her. They’ve been separated for three and a half hours.

And Clarke’s not really sure what forces her, but she runs into Lexa’s arms, wrapping her arms tight around her as Lexa drops her bag and hugs her back. And it feels nice. Better than nice. It feels like she hasn’t seen Lexa in days, weeks even, and she just needs to feel her to make sure she’s real. To make sure she’s okay. She buries her head in Lexa’s shoulder, breathing in her scent as Lexa’s hand comes up to rub the back of her head.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” she whispers, and she feels Lexa sigh against her head, and she’s pretty sure she feels her kiss her temple too, before Raven is speaking up from beside them.

“Hey,” Raven says, pulling them out of their little bubble. “Where’s my hug?”

Clarke pulls back, smiling at Lexa for a few seconds before turning around and walking over to Raven.

“I’m glad you made it back safe,” she says, hugging Raven. It’s not like the hug she gave Lexa, but she doesn’t really think about that.

Instead, she walks with them back to the dorm, all of them slipping through the window and passing the backpacks and trash bags through.

Clarke makes sure to sit closest to Lexa when they all settle down, talking about the stuff they’d all managed to loot. And she tells them all about Harper; tells them what had happened with Monroe and her other friends, and she tells them that Harper will be staying with them now. They all seem to be okay with it, especially Monty, who is already friends with Harper. After Clarke introduces Harper to everyone, they all get back to chatting as they each snack on the canned peaches that Lexa managed to get.

Lexa gets Clarke’s attention when everybody is arguing about which Lord of the Rings book is best, tapping her shoulder and smiling softly when Clarke turns around.

“Look what I found,” Lexa whispers, reaching into her backpack. She pulls out a drawing pad, then some colored pencils, some fine pens and a stationary set. She hands them to Clarke, and Clarke grins when she realizes that Lexa probably went out of her way to get them for her.

She had forgot to pack her art supplies before they came to Raven and Octavia’s; she was too worried about packing food and clothes, and she didn’t know that Lexa had noticed.

“Thank you,” she takes them with a smile, leaning in to plant a quick kiss on Lexa’s cheek.

The smile Lexa gives her is enough to make her almost forget about the dangers outside.

They sleep in the same arrangement as last night, only this time Clarke lets Harper sleep in the bed. She and Lexa sleep on the floor, and she has to resist the urge to cuddle up to Lexa again when she notices that the floor is big enough for them not to be touching.

It takes her five more minutes to realize that she wishes she’d taken the bed just so she’d be able to sleep next to Lexa.

Right now is not exactly the best time to be falling for Lexa, but Clarke can’t help it.

She thinks she’s fucked.

//

**13th December 2015**

Lexa wakes up in the middle of the night again, groaning quietly, and her back cracks when she rolls over.

She rubs her eyes with a yawn before throwing the blankets off of herself when she notices that she’s sweating. She had been dreaming about Clarke. It wasn’t exactly interesting or anything explicit, thank God. It had just been her and Clarke each reading a book next to each other in their dorm; she had been reading The Lady in the Looking Glass, and Clarke was reading The Bell Jar. And it’s not one of the best dreams she’s had, but she certainly wishes it was real.

In the four months that they’ve been roommates, they haven’t exactly had the chance to be domestic. Sure, sometimes Clarke asks Lexa if she wants anything from the store, but Lexa just passed that off as Clarke being polite. But most of the time, Clarke was either at Raven and Octavia’s apartment, or spending hours upon hours in the art workshop at the university, putting everything she could into her projects.

Which Lexa respected, because she too spend most of her days in the library writing assignments or reading. The only time they saw each other were in the mornings before classes and lectures, and in the evenings when they both were getting ready for bed.

She’d love to be domestic with Clarke though, especially now. She’d love to sit and do her criminal justice paper while Clarke paints or reads or draws something. She’d love to sit and watch TV while Clarke makes them food. She’d love for Clarke to ask her if she wants to grab coffee with her from the café down the street before their 9AM lectures.

And the sad part about it is that she’s not sure they’ll ever get to do that.

It was one thing to suppress her crush before, with no risk other than making a fool out of herself or for her feelings to go unreciprocated. But now she has to suppress them in the middle of the apocalypse, knowing for a fact that one of them could die any minute.

She sits up, looking over at where Clarke is sleeping, immediately frowning when she sees that Clarke’s not there. Her eyes dart around the room. The rest of the group are still sleeping, – still alive, she hopes – all scattered around the small space.

She looks around to see if Clarke is standing at the window, but there’s no sign of her. She thinks that maybe she’s in the bathroom, so she gets up and tiptoes past everybody, almost falling over Lincoln’s leg in the process.

But she’s not in the bathroom either.

She walks back to where she was laying, jumping when she hears Raven’s voice.

“What are you doing?”

She looks down at her. Octavia is hugging her from behind, still asleep as she buries her head into Raven’s neck. She’d think it was cute, if she wasn’t so worried about where Clarke could be. Judging by the darkness outside, it’s probably still the middle of the night, or the early hours of the morning if that.

She looks around the dim room once again for Clarke, just in case she’d missed her, but like before, she’s nowhere to be found.

“Are you okay?” Raven asks, and she nods.

"I'm fine," Lexa says, quickly looking behind her when she hears a noise. It’s just Bellamy rolling over in his sleep though, and she turns her head back around to look at Raven. "I don't know where Clarke is."

"What?"

"She's gone.”

“It’s Clarke, she can’t have gone far.”

Lexa nods, but she can’t help the tears that immediately form in her eyes at the thought of anything bad happening to Clarke. She’d never be able to live with herself if anything happened. Raven is here though, telling her in the best way she can that everything is fine, and Clarke won’t let anything happen to herself, and it kind of calms her down.

Kind of.

“What’s the deal with you two anyway?” Raven asks, and Lexa frowns.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“You two look at each other like you’re the only ones in the room, yet Clarke never told me you were together.”

“We’re not together.”

Raven smiles. “Well. You should be.”

Lexa just sighs, telling Raven that she’s going outside to look for Clarke. It’s probably not the best idea, given the circumstance, which is why Raven argues against it. But she’s stubborn, especially when it comes to Clarke’s safety, and she tells Raven to come look for her if she’s not back in half an hour.

She immediately finds Clarke outside, sitting on the roof of one of the abandoned cars outside the building.

She doesn’t think about the relieved sigh that she lets out of her mouth, and she definitely doesn’t think about how beautiful Clarke looks, staring up at the sky with wide eyes.

Okay, she does think about it.

She takes a second to look at her before she approaches the car. She’s always thought Clarke was beautiful. Always thought there was something different about Clarke that she couldn’t quite put her finger on up until now.

She’s effortlessly beautiful.

Clarke doesn’t need to try to look good. She doesn’t need makeup on, or her hair done up nice and professional, or revealing clothes that show off her best parts. Everything about Clarke is the best, Lexa thinks. She doesn’t need to try, which Lexa would be jealous of if she didn’t find it ridiculously endearing.

From the color of her eyes, to the slope of her nose, to her sharp jawline, to her messy hair.

She’s not perfect but she’s damn well close.

“Hey,” she says, getting Clarke’s attention. Clarke jumps as she looks down at her, relaxing immediately when she sees who it is. And it’s only then that Lexa notice that Clarke has a can of beer in her hand.

She climbs up onto the car when Clarke greets her, sitting next to her, close enough for their legs to be touching. Clarke sniffs up, and Lexa sighs.

“I was concerned.”

“Why?” Clarke asks. Her voice is husky and strained. Lexa takes a second to wonder if Clarke has been crying. It would explain why her eyes look a lot bluer tonight.

“I woke up and you weren’t there.”

“ _Aw_ ,” Clarke grins, but Lexa knows it’s fake. “You worried about me?”

“Yes,” she says bluntly, and Clarke seems shocked at her admission. She doesn’t say anything though. So Lexa asks her if she couldn’t sleep, and she watches as Clarke nods before taking a swig of her beer.

It’s silent for a while. Lexa takes this time to evaluate today, and yesterday, and tomorrow, and then she thinks about what’s going to happen in the future. What’s going to happen 10 years from now? Will the world be completely overrun by the undead? Will there be no more humanity? What’s going on in other countries? Did the government know this would happen? Who caused it all? And did they know that innocent people’s lives would change forever in a matter of just a couple of days?

Clarke interrupts her thoughts, asking her what she’s thinking about. She doesn’t realize Clarke’s staring at her until she turns to look at her. And she almost forgets to answer, because Clarke’s eyes are so blue, it’s like they’re hypnotizing her; pulling her in and making her fall deeper and deeper, until she lands head first and drowns in all her own pent-up emotions.

She’s not sure that’s possible though. Maybe that happened four months ago. She can’t fall deeper if she’s already hit the bottom.

“Lexa?”

“Yeah,” Lexa nods, tearing her eyes away from Clarke. She looks up at the sky. “I was just thinking about this… whole situation. If we’re gonna be okay.”

“We are,” Clarke says, putting her hand on Lexa’s thigh. Lexa looks down at it, going back to look up at the sky a few seconds later.

“I had my whole life all planned out, ya know,” Lexa says with a sad smile. “Graduate with a criminology degree, move back to California,” she pauses when she notices that Clarke’s hand is still on her leg. “Maybe settle down. I wanted to be a police officer. I’d drive around in a kickass squad car,” she smiles when she hears Clarke let out a soft laugh. “Try and make the world a better place, you know? And I’d come home every day to my wife and my two kids and our puppy, and it’d be,” she swallows, “it’d be perfect.”

Clarke stays silent for a bit, and it’s not until she asks “wife?” that Lexa thinks maybe she’s shared a little too much about herself.

“Yeah, I, uh…I thought you knew.” She swallows. “I’m gay.”

“I had no idea,” Clarke says, before quickly adding, “I’m bisexual, so I’m not like, gonna judge you or anything.”

And Lexa smiles, because of all the conversations they could be having right now, she never thought this would be one of them; just a casual chat about their sexualities in the middle of the end of the world.

It’s kind of funny.

“I’m not afraid of you judging me,” she says with a smile, looking back down at Clarke. "Don't worry."

 _I’m afraid of losing you_ , she wants to say, but she doesn’t. She keeps her mouth shut, because she doesn’t want to dump her feelings on Clarke. Not right now.

So she tells Clarke that it’s getting cold, and she’s about to get off the car and help Clarke down, when she sees Clarke taking her leather jacket off. She drapes it over Lexa’s shoulders, smiling at her before turning and picking an unopened can of beer up.

“Watch the sunrise with me?” Clarke says, and Lexa’s never been able to say no to Clarke, so she takes the can from her and opens it. She doesn’t like beer, but for Clarke, she’ll do anything.

She almost forgets to watch the sunrise.

Clarke is much more beautiful anyway.


	3. Chapter 3

“ _Dying is simple. It all just stops. You're dead. The people around you dying, that's the hard part. Okay? 'Cause you keep living knowing that they're gone and you're still here. What you should be scared of is living knowing that you didn't do everything you could to keep them here._ ” – rosita espinosa, the walking dead

* * *

**14th December 2015**

It’s when they’re all eating lunch the next day when the bombs start going off.

They don’t notice at first. They’re pretty far away – or at least they sound like they are – and it’s hard to hear things that are far away when Raven is telling one of her stories about the time she and Octavia almost got arrested for drunkenly singing Whitney Houston too loud on the way home from a club.

Clarke had just come out of the bathroom, groggy and moody because her period had just started and her cramps were already killing her insides, and Raven had made it her mission to cheer Clarke up. It took two stories before Clarke felt a little better, thankful that her friends were all so nice to her.

Monty is heating them all some soup up in Raven and Octavia’s microwave, and some of them are having to eat out of the plastic takeout containers that Raven insists on keeping, but it’s food, and they’re all thankful.

(“Ah, I bet you’re glad I saved them _now_ bitch,” Raven had said to Octavia, immediately apologizing afterwards for calling her girlfriend a bitch.

But Octavia had nodded and told her that yes, she’s glad she kept them, and everyone laughed as Maya told them to stop being gross and in love.)

Clarke curls up in the corner of Octavia’s bed with her soup and a blanket, putting a pillow behind her back. She lets out another groan as her cramps start up again, and Lexa is by her side with a hot water bottle in seconds.

“Where did you get that?”

“It’s Octavia’s,” Lexa says. There’s worry in her eyes. “Here, put it on your stomach.”

Clarke lets Lexa lift the blanket off of her and put the bottle on her stomach, and she can’t stop the groan that she lets out when her stomach cramps again. Lexa gulps.

“Are you okay? Do you want me to make you some tea?”

Clarke sees Raven smile out of the corner of her eye, but she doesn’t mention it.

She tells Lexa that she’s fine. And she is, really. She deals with this every month. It’s not like she’s dying. She’d much rather be in pain from period cramps than be in pain from whatever this virus is that’s going around sending everyone crazy.

Lexa still looks worried though, and Clarke has to admit; she’s a little endeared. She’s never seen her roommate show so much care for something other than her studies.

“Lexa,” she says as Lexa fiddles with her blanket, still kneeling on the floor beside the bed.

“Yeah? What is it?” She looks up at Clarke, and Clarke smiles softly.

“I’m not dying. Go eat your soup.”

Lexa hesitates before standing up, going to help Monty dish out everyone’s soup before she gets her own. And it makes Clarke smile, that even though Lexa doesn’t know some of these people, she’s more than willing to help out.

It’s when Lexa is sitting beside Clarke playing with Raven’s portable radio when Murphy shushes them all, and he tells everyone to listen. They hold their breaths tensely, and an explosion sounds in the distance thirty seconds later, which immediately shakes them all up.

Most of them are on their feet immediately, and Lincoln and Bellamy are telling everyone to calm down as they check out what’s going on. Murphy warns Bellamy to be careful and Clarke thinks maybe Murphy’s a lot more worried than he lets on. She notices the hesitation in Bellamy’s eye when Bell tells Murphy to stay there. And then he’s out of the window with Lincoln; everyone watching as they walk up the road with their guns ready.

Another bomb goes off, which shakes the ground a bit more, and Lexa suggests some of them go to the roof to get a better look, but Raven tells them that the elevators are broken and there’s no way to get upstairs because of the crashed car in the front of the building. So instead, Lexa sits back against the wall, letting Clarke cuddle up to her as she continues to mess with the radio, hoping for any sign of life.

“I’m scared,” Clarke whispers to the side of Lexa’s head. Lexa immediately puts the radio on her lap, looking at Clarke with wide eyes.

“It’s okay,” she says in a small, soft voice; her tone comforting as she reaches up to tuck Clarke’s hair behind her ear before resting her hand on Clarke’s shoulder.

Clarke’s eyes search Lexa’s for anything – remorse, fear, dread – but all she sees is her own reflection staring back at her. She hates relying on Lexa to keep her sane, but right now she’s the only one who makes Clarke relax with just one look.

The radio crackles, interrupting their gaze, and Clarke tries not to notice that Lexa doesn’t move her hand away from her shoulder.

Lincoln and Bellamy get back five minutes later, telling them that they think they’re bombing the city and they should be safe here because the population isn’t as big, but Clarke is still worried.

It’s hard not to be, when there’s a war going on outside their front door.

//

**16th December 2015**

They last another two days in Octavia and Raven’s dorm before they see one of them.

They decided as a group to call them walkers, when Murphy suggested the name. Lexa had agreed with him, though she didn’t voice her thoughts. She personally thinks calling them _anything_ is glorifying them; making them seem like something they’re not. Though she doesn’t have any other ideas of what to call the dead that have come back to life that doesn’t sound wrong or cheesy. (‘Zombies’, Jasper had suggested. That just made them sound like they’re in Scooby-Doo or Adventure Time.)

It’s a lone one, and Lincoln notices it when he’s having a cigarette at the window. Some of the gang are playing Monopoly, some are reading, and some sat around just watching the others. Monty is playing the guitar quietly, with Clarke singing gently in the background. Lexa is trying to read her book, but every time Clarke hits a particular note while she’s singing, she diverts her attention to the girl she’s quickly falling in love with.

Clarke has a beautiful voice, so sue her for getting distracted.

Lincoln immediately shuts the window and closes the curtains, catching the attention of everybody in the room.

“There’s a walker,” he whispers. Monty immediately stops playing the guitar. Clarke immediately stops singing. Lexa immediately stops staring at Clarke. Everybody immediately stops talking.

“Do we kill it?” Raven asks Lincoln, and he shrugs his shoulders as everyone kind of looks back and forth at each other for a little bit. It’s completely silent.

The only thing they can hear is the slight shuffle and quiet groaning of the walker outside.

Murphy speaks up. “Lure it to the window and we’ll kill it. If more of them come, they won’t come near rotten blood.”

“But the corpse will stink,” Octavia says.

“Oh, I’m _sorry_ ,” Murphy shoots back. “Would you rather deal with a bad smell or _die_?”

“Murphy’s right,” Bellamy says. “It’ll act as protection.”

Lincoln nods, pulling his knife out of his pocket and opening the window. He taps on the glass to catch the walker’s attention, waiting for it to get nearer to the window.

Lexa looks away when she hears Lincoln grunt, and then a body hits the floor and she suddenly feels sad. Sad that this is their life now. Twelve people huddled up in a small dorm room, not daring to go outside in case they end up getting ripped apart limb by limb.

She doesn’t notice Clarke taking a seat beside her on Octavia’s bed until she feels a hand on her thigh. She looks down at the hand, and everything in her vision looks black and white. Then up to see Clarke’s eyes staring back at her, and all she can see is bright blue.

Clarke looks concerned.

“You alright?” Clarke asks her, and Lexa nods as she folds her book at the corner before closing it.

She wouldn’t say she’s _alright_ but she’s trying to be. For Clarke’s sake.

All she wants is for Clarke to hold her but of course, all she can ask for is Clarke to play chess with her. It’s practically the only thing that’ll help her concentrate on something other than the fact that she’s scared.

Clarke wins the first round, and it’s not at all because Lexa had gone easy on her.

By the fourth game, the bombs have stopped, but the pounding in Lexa’s heart hasn’t.

//

**19th December 2015**

It’s another three days of sleeping on the floor with eleven other people in the room, before Lexa decides she hates it.

She misses her privacy. She misses being able to get up and go shower whenever she wants. She misses the sunshine; going outside without being afraid of getting mauled to death by a walker. She misses unlimited electricity, and being able to take midnight trips to Del Taco. She even misses doing her assignments in the campus library, listening to the loud group of freshmen who are always sat on the table beside her.

Instead, she has to share a room with eleven people – most of them she’d never even met before nine days ago – who are already starting to get on her nerves, and a paranoid conscience whenever she goes outside.

Most of all, she hates that they’re sat here doing nothing.

It’s already been just over a week which Lexa thinks is long enough to wait it out. There’s nobody around to help them, and they’re certainly not going to survive any longer with just the rations they have from their trip to Target and Kmart.

So that’s why she suggests that they head out. There’s nothing else for them here, and she knows that Clarke needs to get to Chicago to find her mom.

Raven’s the first to speak up when Lexa suggests leaving, turning to Clarke and telling her that if she wants to get to Chicago then she’s coming with her too. And then Octavia speaks up, telling them all that she’s going with Lexa, Raven and Clarke. Then Bellamy’s next, saying that he’s not letting his little sister go on this suicide mission without him. And then it’s Murphy, then Lincoln, and before Lexa knows it, they’re all packing their things up – only the essentials – and making their way out of the window one by one.

There’s five dead corpses outside now. Another one had come when Lexa and Clarke were sat outside on one of the cars again. It was a dangerous thing to do; to go outside while everyone else was asleep. Especially since they’ve seen a few walker’s roaming around the area. But Clarke wanted to watch the sunrise again, and Lexa couldn’t say no.

Clarke had killed it with her knife that Lincoln had gave her, before dragging it over to sit beside the others against the wall. That was yesterday, and Lexa’s not sure why but she senses something wrong with Clarke. She hasn’t been the same since she killed it, which _okay_ , Lexa understands. It _is_ essentially murder, and just the thought of killing something – even if they _are_ cannibalistic undead people – scares Lexa to no end, but this is their life now.

She’s proud of Clarke, though. For being so brave during all of this.

She tears her eyes away from the dead bodies when Bellamy tells them that they should avoid going near the city. They’re no longer bombing it, but realistically that’s where it’ll be most populated – with both walkers and people – and they all agree with him as they set off in the right direction. Bellamy leads them at the front with Octavia and Raven, who have a map of Florida that they found in one of the abandoned cars. Lincoln follows behind them, watching their backs as the rest of them stay close in the middle.

Lexa walks with Clarke, occasionally looking at her to see if she’s okay; to see if her face shows any sign of emotion other than completely exhausted. She’s pretty sure that Clarke’s period is coming to an end, so it’s not like she can blame that if Lexa points out that there’s something wrong with her, like she had been doing a couple of days ago.

“Hey Clarke,” Lexa says, getting Clarke’s attention. “What did the finger say to the thumb?”

“Lexa, I’m not in the m–“

“–I’m in _glove_ with you,” she interrupts, holding up her gloved hand. She waits for Clarke’s reaction, her smile growing when Clarke laughs softly and shakes her head.

“You’re in idiot,” she says, pushing Lexa’s arm.

When Lexa cracks her third knock knock joke, Clarke finally joins in.

For a while, it takes their minds off of the fact that the world has gone to shit.

//

“Hey guys, why don’t we get a car?”

“Because the roads are blocked.”

“I can hotwire one, you know.”

“We _know_ , Reyes.”

“I’m just saying, it’ll be a lot quicker and–no? Okay? Okay! No cars.”

//

They decide to look for an empty house when they realize it’ll be dark soon.

They’ve seen a few walkers on the way; Bellamy, Murphy, and Lincoln taking care of them and putting their bodies on the side of the road. They all have a weapon each, ranging from kitchen knives to crowbars to sharpened pieces of wood. Most of them still go unused though.

Bellamy and Murphy clear out the bottom part of the house when they find one. There’s two of them in there, and they’d appeared when Bellamy had banged on the door when he managed to pry it open. They drag the bodies outside onto the road, and everybody piles in.

It had shocked Clarke, seeing them dragging the bodies out. It shocks her how quickly they had all adapted to this new life.

Maya immediately runs to the bathroom to pee. Bellamy and Murphy go to the kitchen to wash their hands, only they realize that the water isn’t working so they decide to go look in the backyard for any more weapons or supplies. Monty sits down on one of the couches, along with Harper and Jasper who both sit down on the floor in front of him. The rest of them look around the house for anything that could be of use, surprised to find that the place is untouched.

Lexa finds some more candles, which she scatters around all of the rooms for when it gets dark. Clarke roots through the cupboards, pouring most of the foods that are still in date into her bag. Part of her feels like she’s stealing, but then the other part of her reminds her that the owners of the house are laid face down on the front lawn.

Octavia comes into the kitchen, grinning as she holds a katana in front of her. And Clarke has to do a double take because that is one _big_ sword.

“Look at this,” Octavia says, swishing the sword around slowly. She sounds like an excited child who has just built a cool sandcastle, not someone who has just found a weapon to kill the undead with.

It makes Clarke nervous.

“Be careful with that,” Clarke says, turning around when Bellamy comes back into the kitchen from the backyard.

“O, what the hell are you doing with that thing?”

“I’m keeping it!” she says, putting it behind her back, and Bellamy’s about to argue back when a loud scream sounds out from inside the house. Clarke’s eyes widen, her mind immediately thinking the worst, and she runs into the living room, sighing in relief when she sees Lexa.

But then she hears it.

The growling. The crying. The struggling.

Jasper is the first to bolt upstairs, and that’s when Clarke remembers that Maya is up there.

She hears Jasper yelling Maya’s name, before there’s grunting and smashing and squelching, and then what sounds like a body drops to the floor. And Clarke feels selfish, for being too bothered about Lexa’s safety to realize that there are other people here too. She hears both Maya and Jasper crying, and she runs upstairs when she notices that everyone else is stood in shock, not really knowing what to do.

She holds back her vomit at the sight of the walker laid on the landing with its head caved in, and she gasps when she sees all the blood; her eyes eventually settling on the hand that Jasper has on Maya’s neck, pressing on the wound as he yells at Clarke to _do something_.

Her instincts kick in, and she steps passed them to see if there’s a first aid kit anywhere. She finds one in the cupboard under the sink, and her hands are shaking as she opens the box and pulls out a roll of bandage. It’s only small though, and there’s not enough. Not enough bandage and not enough _time_ , and Jasper is still crying as Maya closes her eyes and rests her head back against the wall.

He’s telling her to stay with him, and to be brave, and to not close her eyes, and Clarke doesn’t realize she’s crying until her vision gets blurry as she pulls off all the bandage from the roll.

“Clarke!” Jasper yells, begging for her to do something but it’s too late. She’s frozen, and Maya has lost too much blood already. He tries to push on Maya’s chest, tries to give her mouth to mouth, but it’s no use.

She’s gone.

“I’m sorry, Jasper,” Clarke says, kneeling down next to him. She’s still crying, and so is Jasper, and she puts a hand on his shoulder to try and comfort him.

He flinches away from her though, and she understands immediately that he needs to be alone. She stuffs the bandage back into the first aid box and puts it on the toilet lid, stepping past them both before going back downstairs. Monty and Octavia are stood outside the bathroom door, with everybody else waiting downstairs.

Clarke pushes past Bellamy when he tries to talk to her, making her way outside and slamming the door behind her. She sits on the swing on the front porch, eyes glued to the two dead bodies that are on the lawn, and she cries.

She cries because it’s not fair.

She cries because she never asked for any of this.

Of all the things that had to happen to the world, it was this. She cries because she’s sick of living this way, having to fight for their life every second they’re outside. And it’s only been nine days, but it’s like she’s been catapulted into a new and scary world; a world in which she doesn’t, and will never, belong. She’s sick of the walkers wandering around like they’re wanted here, eating practically any living thing they set eyes on. She’s sick of not being able to call her mom whenever she wants to. Instead, she has to wonder if her mom is even alive. She has to sleep with somebody being on watch in case they get attacked in the middle of the night.

She’s not sure when it gets dark, but it’s long after she’s stopped crying, and long after she feels any kind of sadness whatsoever.

Instead, she feels numb.

And she forgets where she is for a moment, until the door opens and someone steps out onto the porch. They approach Clarke nervously, stopping and standing above her.

“Can I sit?”

Clarke nods, moving up a bit on the seat, but she notices that Lexa still sits close to her. Close enough for Clarke to feel Lexa’s body heat, and she hadn’t even realized she was freezing until she feels Lexa’s warm hand slip into hers.

She shivers.

“So a duck walks into a bar…”

“Lexa,” she lets out a soft sigh.

“He orders a beer and says, ‘hey, put it on my bill.’”

She shakes her head, looking at Lexa with an amused smile.

“That was terrible,” she chokes out.

Lexa grins, but her smile soon fades after a while. She looks down at Clarke’s lips for a split second, and it makes Clarke freeze. Makes her stop and realize that even though she feels like absolute shit, she’s still _almost_ happy when she looks at Lexa. She still feels a little bit hopeful that things are going to be okay, as long as Lexa is here.

And she’d rather be almost happy with Lexa than be anywhere else.

She gulps. She shouldn’t be thinking this. Especially since Jasper has just lost someone so close to him. And Clarke knows that it wasn’t her fault, but she’s still low key blaming herself for not doing more. For not being able to at least wrap up Maya’s wound.

She looks away from Lexa, sighing heavily when she feels Lexa squeeze her hand.

They sit in silence for another five minutes when Clarke feels Lexa’s head rest on her shoulder.

She shivers again, but this time not from the cold.

“I know you’re blaming yourself.”

Clarke sighs. She hates that Lexa knows her so well.

“I couldn’t do anything,” Clarke whispers as she rests the side of her head against Lexa’s. Her throat is hoarse and she feels like she’s going to start crying again, but she swallows the lump in her throat because she hates crying in front of people.

“There was nothing you could do,” Lexa whispers. “She was already bit. Once that happens, they can’t be saved.”

“How long do you think it’s going to take for her to turn?”

“Bellamy’s already taken care of it. We’re holding a funeral tomorrow.” Clarke takes a deep breath in, holding it for a few seconds before slowly letting it out. “Hey,” Lexa murmurs, lifting her head up. Clarke looks at her. “Are you okay?”

“No,” Clarke says, letting out a soft but frustrated breath at the thought of her being okay. She’s pretty sure her ‘okay’ days are over now. Lexa understands her though, she thinks, because she tells her that she’s not either. Clarke’s pretty sure none of them are okay. They just need to keep acting like it and hopefully, in time, they will be.

They lost their first person today, and it’s hurting Clarke more that she’s glad it wasn’t Lexa.

She doesn’t think she’ll ever forgive herself for being so selfish.

Lexa’s hand is still in hers, and she thinks that this is as close to okay as she’s going to get for now.

It’s midnight when they decide to go inside; Clarke leading Lexa upstairs by the hand instead of sleeping downstairs with the others. She tries not to look at the trail of blood leading down the stairs from where Bellamy or Lincoln had probably dragged the walker down to dispose of it in the back yard.

Lexa asks why they’re going upstairs but Clarke doesn’t answer. Instead, she takes her into one of the bedrooms, hoping that there are no more walkers inside.

Lexa’s hands are sweaty when Clarke shuts the door.

The bedroom is very minimalist, with a double bed in the middle of the room and a few different pieces of IKEA furniture scattered around. It’s clean though, and there are even more candles on the shelf which Clarke notices Lexa staring at as she leads her towards the bed. It makes her smile a little.

She lets go of Lexa’s hand for a moment, getting under the covers before pulling Lexa in with her, glad when Lexa doesn’t ask any questions.

She just needs to be held right now, and she hopes Lexa gets it.

Except, Lexa doesn’t get it – whatever _it_ is – because instead of moving closer to Clarke, she stays on the other side of the bed, laid on her back staring up at the ceiling.

Clarke sighs as she turns around.

She doesn’t have anything to lose.

“Lexa?”

“Yeah?” She’s laid on her side facing Lexa, and when Lexa turns her head to the side to look at her, Clarke’s heart feels like it’s going to pound out of her chest.

“What is it, Clarke?”

“Can you hold me?” She whispers. It’s quiet, and at first Clarke’s not sure Lexa heard her – not sure if she even said it out loud – but then a few seconds later, Lexa nods and moves closer to her.

Clarke turns back around, her shoulders relaxing and her body deflating when Lexa wraps her arms around her from behind. She gulps. She doesn’t know why she’s so nervous, but being this close to Lexa makes her heart pound and her stomach tighten. That has to mean something.

She brings Lexa’s hand up to her mouth, kissing her knuckles as she whispers “thank you.”

“For what?” Lexa asks. Her voice is quiet and her breath is soft against her neck, and it makes Clarke feel safe. Secure.

It makes her feel like she’s in love.

“For being kind to me,” she answers. She hears Lexa swallow.

“Of course,” she murmurs. “I care about you a lot, Clarke.”

She closes her eyes and breathes in.

“No place and time to fall for someone than the middle of the apocalypse, right?” She laughs nervously, clenching her teeth when she realizes how stupid that may have sounded. How stupid it was to lay herself bare in front of Lexa like that. To not think about the consequences.

Then again, she’s right. It’s the middle of the apocalypse, as much as she hates that word, and she’s not sure how long they have left. She wants the time she has left to be spent loving someone – loving _Lexa_ – because who knows what will happen tomorrow.

She always did want something to lose.

“Clarke,” Lexa whispers against her skin. She can hear Lexa breathing; heavier and more ragged than normal. She pulls Lexa closer by the arm, and she doesn’t answer her. Afraid that she may have fucked up somehow. And she’s not ready for Lexa to turn her down, so she squeezes her eyes shut and hopes Lexa will leave it alone and go to sleep.

But Lexa squeezes her tighter, and she lifts her head up so she can see Clarke’s face.

Clarke opens her eyes, turning her head to look up at Lexa. It’s then, with only the moon serving as light through the window, when she sees that Lexa is crying; tears streaming freely down her face. One falls and lands on Clarke’s shoulder, and Clarke breathes out a heavy sigh, bringing her free hand up to cup Lexa’s face.

Her eyes are so pretty like this.

“Hey,” Clarke whispers lightly, rubbing the pad of her thumb across the tears on Lexa’s cheek.

“Did you mean that?” Lexa asks, and Clarke smiles softly as she nods and continues to stroke Lexa’s cheek.

“How could I not?” she says, because it’s true. She never saw this happening; falling for Lexa and relying on her to keep her sane in the middle of all this shit, but she’s here right now, and she’s scared, but being with Lexa is the only thing that makes sense to her right now.

That has to mean something.

“I feel like you’ve saved me.” Clarke exhales, sniffling when she feels her own eyes start to well up with tears. She’s not quite sure why. Maybe because Lexa hasn’t said anything. Maybe she’s scared to death that Lexa doesn’t feel the same. “Lexa?” she whispers. “Is that okay?”

Lexa smiles; it’s a small one that grows after a moment, and it makes Clarke’s stomach clench, because Lexa is beautiful. Lexa closes her eyes as another tear falls down and lands on Clarke’s neck, and then she’s nodding, and Clarke feels her own tears running back down her temple and disappearing into her hairline.

“Yes,” Lexa breathes out. “ _God_ yes.” She sucks in a breath and opens her eyes, locking eyes with Clarke.

She lets go of Clarke’s hand and cups her face, looking down at her with so much love in her eyes that it terrifies Clarke. Terrifies and excites her at the same time.

“All I know,” Lexa murmurs as she caresses Clarke’s face, “in this piece-of-shit world, is that you’re the only thing that makes sense to me. You’re the only person _worth_ saving.”

Clarke’s eyes soften and her heart flutters, and it feels like everything clicks into place.

The way Lexa looks at her. The way she goes out of her way to make Clarke feel better. Her stupid jokes, and the small gestures like holding her hand or rubbing her back or making her soup. The little gifts she finds for her; art supplies and small candles and pieces of jewelry and her favorite flavor candy.

It’s cliché but it’s _love_ , and Clarke has never been as happy to be so predictive in her life.

She wonders how long. How long Lexa has felt this way about her too, and also how long she’s been oblivious to Lexa’s love. Or like. How ignorant she’s been these past four months, to ignore the way Lexa feels about her. Part of her doesn’t want to know the answer. The other part of her wants nothing more.

She goes with the latter.

“How long?” she asks, her heart fluttering again when Lexa’s hand strokes over her neck.

Lexa swallows again.

“Since we met.”

Clarke’s eyes soften, her mouth opening in a small, short gasp. She looks down at Lexa’s lips, gulping when Lexa licks them. She licks her own bottom lip, pressing both together before her eyes flutter shut and suddenly they’re kissing.

She doesn’t know who initiates it, but she doesn’t really care because it feels like she’s been waiting for this her whole life. She melts into the kiss, stroking Lexa’s face as she feels Lexa’s nose press into her cheek, and she smiles because it’s clumsy and a little awkward but there’s nowhere else she’d want to be right now. And it might be the end of the world but she’s never felt as safe as she does now in Lexa’s arms.

She can feel Lexa’s lip trembling as she kisses her; can feel Lexa’s tears on her cheeks as they switch sides. Or maybe they’re her own tears, she’s not sure. Lexa’s nose brushes over her own, and she squeezes her eyes shut as she puts everything she can into this kiss. Lexa deserves that. She deserves that and so much more.

She strokes down Lexa’s face, across her jawline and down to her neck, pulling her as close as she can. And Lexa’s shaking hand strokes down her neck too, down her shoulders, sliding over her breast before she settles it on Clarke’s stomach. Clarke breathes out another sigh, smiling into the kiss when she feels Lexa’s hand slip under her shirt.

“Lexa,” she whispers into her mouth, breath hitching when Lexa squeezes her hip.

Lexa pulls back slowly, looking down at her with tired, glossy eyes.

As much as she wants it, right now is probably not the best time and place to do this. Their friends are just downstairs, and they’ve lost a member of their little misfit family, and she just wants Lexa to hold her for now. Maybe if she closes her eyes, she’ll dream of a life where they don’t have to be afraid of dying every time they step outside.

“We should sleep,” she says, caressing Lexa’s face. Lexa’s lips are still trembling slightly, but she smiles and she kisses Clarke again a few times, before resting their foreheads together.

Lexa squeezes her eyes shut, swallowing as she pulls her hand out from under Clarke’s shirt.

“I love being around you,” she murmurs. It’s so quiet that Clarke’s not sure if she imagined it or not, but then Lexa is pressing a small kiss to the freckle on her top lip, and she whispers “I really do,” in the small gap between them when she pulls back.

“I love being around you too,” Clarke whispers back with a smile, running the pad of her thumb over Lexa’s lips, before kissing her again.

And God, she really does.

//

**20th December 2015**

It’s fucked up, how they have to bury Maya in a random person’s backyard.

It’s fucked up how Jasper won’t get to visit his own girlfriend on special anniversaries or when he feels lonely. Clarke hates that part the most. She can’t imagine losing someone and not being able to have something to hold onto them by, other than a scarf covered in blood that hasn’t been washed in weeks.

She doesn’t want to think about that.

Lexa holds her hand throughout the service, as Jasper talks about Maya. He’s kneeling down and he has the scarf in one hand, and half a bottle of rum which he found in the kitchen cabinet in the other, but nobody stops him from drinking most of it. It’s his way of grieving, and while it’s dangerous, especially in a time like this, none of them have the heart to take it from him.

Monty stands beside Jasper, his hand on his shoulder as Jasper tells them all how much he loves Maya. How, even though they’ve only been together a month, he fell in love with her at first sight, and he’ll never love someone like he loved– _loves_ her.

Clarke feels selfish for thinking about Lexa throughout that part of the service. For wondering if she’d be able to keep it together if it was Lexa in the ground instead of Maya. If she’d be able to live with herself if anything bad happened to Lexa.

She pushes those thoughts out of her head though, as she squeezes Lexa’s hand and continues to listen to Jasper’s speech.

She’s crying by the time he finishes, and she moves over to hug him. At first she thinks he’ll push her away, tell her he hates her, and blame her for Maya’s death. But instead, he hugs Clarke tightly and she tells him she’s sorry, and he tells her that it’s not her fault and there’s nothing she could have done.

It’s not much but it makes Clarke feel better knowing that Jasper isn’t going to hold it against her.

//

They form a routine pretty fast.

They spend most of their days walking north, weaving in and around abandoned cars that cover the roads, putting down any walkers that seem to have wandered far from the city. Raven finds a car that she manages to hotwire, but it only last twenty minutes on the road before it’s blocked off again.

They find an empty house as soon as the sun starts to set, and clear out any walker’s from inside.

Rinse and repeat.

Sometimes they have to stay outside instead. In a field or at the side of the road in sleeping bags and tents that they have collected from different houses on the way. Two people keep watch while everyone sleeps, and if they’re lucky, they get at least six hours before they’re up and moving again.

They all work well together though. They’re all different kinds of smart; the way Raven can make anything into a weapon, and Bellamy and Lincoln’s determination to keep them all safe, and Murphy’s need to always state the obvious even if it’s not helpful, and how Monty, Miller, and Harper try their hardest to make jokes in stressful situations, and the way Octavia always pulls through when it comes to planning runs or putting down walkers, and the way Lexa keeps them from turning against each other when things get heated.

And the way Clarke keeps them sane; as sane as she possibly can in a world like this.

They don’t have a leader. None of them feel pressured to save anyone, none of them feel compelled to know what to do, and none of them are made to do anything they don’t want to do either.

They start to see more walkers as the days pass. Probably because they’re getting closer to the city of Atlanta. There hasn’t been any sign of bombs since they were back in Florida, so they think it’s safe, save for the thousands of walkers that will inevitably be there.

That’s what Lincoln and Bellamy tell them, at least, and everybody trusts them. They’ve helped keep everyone alive so far.

Almost everyone.

Clarke just hopes they won’t lose anyone else on the way.


	4. Chapter 4

“ _And because we might have had no time at all in the world, it seemed as if we had all the time in the world. We had all the time there ever was and ever will be._ ”  
― virginia bergin, h2o

* * *

 

**25th December 2015**

It’s Harper who tells everyone it’s Christmas day.

She tells them that she keeps track of the days because it makes her feel useful; helps keep her sane. She has a worn down journal and she writes about their day; how many walkers they’ve seen, how many walkers they’ve killed, how many people they’ve come across – none so far – and what they’ve looted from the different houses they’ve stopped at.

They’re in Senoia when she tells them. They’re yet to find a house, as it’s only midday, and nobody else seems to be speaking.

Murphy replies with a “merry fucking zombie apocalypse” and Clarke would laugh if she wasn’t so torn up about the fact that it’s only been fifteen days since this all started, yet still long enough for them to lose count of the days.

It’s haunting.

They carry on walking as normal though, none of them batting an eyelash at a walker stumbling through the field beside them.

//

Up until now, the walkers they’ve come across have only been in small groups. Five is the most that they’ve seen at once, and they were taken care of by Bellamy, Lincoln, Octavia, and Raven. It’s not that Clarke can’t kill them; she just prefers not to. She prefers staying behind with Lexa, to make sure they’re both safe and bite-free.

Now though, as they all hide behind two abandoned cars, and as Clarke looks out at all the walkers roaming around the deserted road in front of them, she starts to panic. There’s dozens of them. More than Clarke can count. There’s no way eleven of them can get rid of them all without getting surrounded. And the worst part of it all is, they have no choice. It’s too late to turn back. There’s nowhere else to go but _through_ them if they want to make it to a house before the sun goes down, and Clarke’s not sure if she’ll be able to make it to the other side.

Merry zombie apocalypse indeed.

“What’s the plan?”

It’s Monty who asks, probably aiming the questioning at Bellamy or Lincoln. Clarke tries to listen, she really does, but she can’t take her eyes off of the horde in front of them. She had no idea it was this bad. She thought this would last a couple of weeks, a month tops. She had no idea how serious this whole ‘end of the world’ thing was. So now here she is, praying to God that she doesn’t end up walker meat as the gang come up with a plan to get past them all.

How had it happened so quickly?

One day they were normal college students, the next they were coming up with a plan to dispose of the undead.

Haunting.

It’s Octavia who suggests covering themselves in walker blood and guts and trying to sneak past them, and Murphy laughs at first, until he realizes that everyone is considering it, and he sighs loudly.

“That’s disgusting,” he says.

“Oh I’m _sorry_ ,” Octavia replies immediately. “Would you rather deal with a bad smell on your clothes or _die_?”

He shakes his head, but Clarke sees the smile at the corner of his mouth. “Touché,” he says.

They’re far enough away for the walkers not to see or hear them, but too far away to be able to lure one of them here so they can kill it and empty its stomach contents. Which is a problem, if they want to go through with Octavia’s plan.

“How are we supposed to lure one here?” Clarke asks Bellamy, and he shakes his head as he looks over at the horde.

“I don’t know,” he says. He tightens his grip on the bag of weapons he has on his shoulder.

“Why don’t we just go in guns blazing?”

Everyone turns to look at Jasper. He’s just staring ahead, eyes bloodshot, skin pale, nose sore. He hasn’t been the same since Maya died, which everyone understands. But they’ve almost made it to Atlanta in one piece, and Clarke’s not going to let them all die because Jasper isn’t considering the consequences of his suggestion.

Before she can tell him that though, Murphy tells him that it won’t work, and Bellamy and Lincoln are agreeing immediately; telling Jasper not to do anything rash as they think of a plan. Clarke watches Jasper though. Watches the way his nostrils flare and his eyes squeeze shut and his knuckles go white from how hard he’s gripping his knife.

She thinks he’s breaking.

It takes them another ten minutes of planning back and forth before Clarke notices a lone walker stumbling towards them. She gets everyone’s attention, nodding her head towards it before standing up.

“Clarke,” Lexa grabs her hand, looking up at her with wide eyes.

“It’s okay,” she whispers, pulling her hand away.

Lexa watches as Clarke approaches the walker, her knife gripped tightly in her hand. Lexa holds her breath, ready to jump up at any sign that Clarke is in true danger. She watches as Clarke grabs the walker’s shoulder, watches as it tries to reach out to grab Clarke. But she jams her knife through the top of its skull and it falls to the floor as she pulls the knife out and steps back.

It’s then that Lexa decides to stand up, putting her hand on Clarke’s shoulder as she pulls her back towards the group.

“Look at you, you’re a natural,” Lexa says, trying to bring light to the situation as she tucks a few loose strands of hair behind Clarke’s ear.

Clarke doesn’t have it in her to reply.

The bodies don’t make her want to throw up any more. She’s used to seeing them now. It’s like when you watch a horror movie more than once. It’s scary the first time, but if you watch it again and again, it’ll start to get old real fast.

That’s the most fucked up thing about this whole thing; that she’s practically numb to it.

It’s Lincoln who cuts the body open, and it’s Lincoln who notes that they need another body if they all want to get past the horde alive.

And that’s when they hear the gunshots.

Not just a few, but one after the other… after the other.

For a moment, Clarke thinks Bellamy has decided to say fuck it to the plan and instead go through with Jasper’s suggestion. It wouldn’t surprise her.

She looks around frantically for the source, but Lexa pulls her down immediately so that they’re ducking behind the car again, and she shushes her as they stay close together. She keeps her eyes locked on Lexa’s, and she can see the fear in them. Can see how scared and vulnerable she looks. So she reaches a hand up and cups Lexa’s face, and she whispers that it’s gonna be okay, and Lexa believes her.

She slowly leans in, placing a small kiss on Lexa’s top lip before resting their foreheads together.

She doesn’t think about how any of the group could have seen that. She doesn’t care about keeping their relationship a secret. Instead, she focuses on both of their breathing, eyes squeezed tight.

The gunshots stop, and Clarke’s about to stand up to see if it’s safe when they hear, see, and feel a black van speeding past them, the engine dangerously loud and rickety. There’s someone hanging out of the window with some sort of spiked ball and chain attached to a bat, swinging it around as he yells out words that Clarke doesn’t understand because she’s too shaken up.

The van is gone before they know it, and they all stand up to see most of the corpses laid on the floor, not moving. The rest of the horde are coming towards them though; slowly but surely.

There’s still too many.

“What the fuck was that all about?” Raven asks, and Bellamy shakes his head as he pulls his gun out of the holster.

“I don’t know but they’re getting closer,” he says. “We have to fight.”

Before anyone can stop him, Bellamy aims his gun at a walker’s head, shooting it right between the eyes and watching it fall to the floor.

Clarke yells his name, because he’s going to attract even more of them, but he doesn’t listen. He shoots more and more, hitting them perfectly in the head, as the rest of them start to use their other weapons to kill them.

It all happens so fast.

Clarke’s knife is digging into more skulls than she can count, and Lexa’s back is towards her as she swings her baseball bat at any walkers that get near them. And Clarke can admit that as terrifying as this whole thing is, Lexa does look good while fighting off a horde of the undead. She puts that in her long mental list of things she needs to say to Lexa if they get out of this alive.

Her thoughts are interrupted by someone yelling her name, and before she knows it she’s being thrown down on the floor. One of the walkers is on top of her; jaw snapping, nostrils flaring, hands scratching.

She’s crying. She can feel the tears burning her eyes and blurring her vision, and she doesn’t know what to do; not sure why her hands have stopped working, not sure how long she’s on the floor for, not sure when it stops or who stops it. But one minute she’s screaming and struggling, and the next minute everything is silent.

“Clarke.”

It’s Lexa’s voice. It sounds far away. It sounds like Clarke’s underwater and Lexa is on the surface, trying to save her from drowning.

She opens her eyes, her chest heaving and her breathing labored as she looks up to see Lexa kneeling above her. And Lexa breathes out a sigh, looking down at Clarke lying on her back; one hand by her side and the other on her stomach, still gripping the knife tight enough to probably leave indentations in her palm.

"Clarke," Lexa says again, taking Clarke's head in her hands and guiding her to look her in the eyes. "Don’t do that, Clarke. Don’t freeze up like that, you hear me?”

"Am I dead?" Clarke asks quietly, her eyes fluttering shut, and Lexa lets out a choked sob as the tears she had been trying so hard to keep back fall freely down her cheeks.

"No, you're alive,” she laughs. “You're safe. You’re gonna be alright."

She slowly rubs her hand over Clarke's still-shaking hand, and Clarke immediately relaxes at the feeling of Lexa’s warm hand closing around hers, taking her knife and dropping it on the floor beside them.

"God, don’t do that," Lexa whispers as she pulls Clarke up into a sitting position, pulling her into her chest and hugging her tightly. “Don’t do that again.”

Clarke hugs her back twice as hard as she lets out a choked sob at the vulnerability in Lexa's voice. It’s not often that Lexa admits that she’s scared. It’s not often that she admits anything, really. But Clarke knows anyway, without having to hear Lexa voice it.

She’s terrified.

And the world may be going to shit but Clarke has never felt safer than she does now, with Lexa holding her tightly in her arms.

//

Lexa sighs as she watches Murphy and Bellamy drag a walker body down the steps of the small house they found a few minutes ago. She had waited at Clarke’s side as the others put the walkers down – three of them – and checked upstairs and the back yard for any more. When they’re told it’s safe, she grabs Clarke’s hand and pulls her inside, immediately going upstairs to the first room that she sees.

She can hear the faint sound of Raven asking if they’re gonna bang before she shuts the door and turns around to face Clarke. She drops her bag and pulls her into a hug, wrapping her arms around Clarke’s shoulders as tight as she can, and she can’t help herself.

She cries.

"It’s okay," Clarke whispers in her ear, and Lexa shivers at the warm breath on her neck.

She pulls Clarke closer, and she brings one hand up to stroke the back of her head as the other hand wraps tighter around her back. She feels Clarke turn her head to the side to place a soft kiss on her ear, and she can almost feel Clarke's heart beating hard against her chest. Or maybe it’s her own.

"Lex?" Clarke whispers, and Lexa squeezes her eyes shut tightly, trying not to let any more tears escape her eyes.

“I’m tired,” she whispers. She feels Clarke hug her tighter, and she buries her head in Clarke’s shoulder. Maybe if she hugs her tight enough, all this will go away.

“Nice try,” Clarke says, “what’s wrong? Is this about today?”

She sniffs up, pulls back, and wipes her tears with the back of her hand. Clarke cups her face, gently using the pads of her thumbs to wipe the rest of her tears before leaning up to kiss her forehead, and she nods.

“Today just…” she pauses, swallowing the lump in her throat. “It put into perspective how fucked up everything is.” Her voice is hoarse from crying, but Clarke is looking at her with soft, caring eyes. It takes her mind off of her sadness for a few seconds. “It’s Christmas, and we’ve been too busy fighting for our lives to realize. And you almost _died_ today.”

“Lexa.”

“I _can’t_ lose you, Clarke.”

Clarke shakes her head, and the corner of her mouth tugs into a small sad smile as she caresses Lexa’s face.

She’s never seen Lexa cry like this before.

It’s scary.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“I don’t want you to die on me.”

“I’m not gonna die,” she whispers, leaning in to gently kiss Lexa’s bottom lip. “I may suck at fighting walkers, but I’m not gonna die. I just froze up, that’s all. It won’t happen again.”

Lexa sniffs up again, and she’s just about to lean in and kiss Clarke when she hears a knock on the door. Clarke quickly pecks Lexa on the lips before pulling away and opening the door, seeing Octavia stood with two towels in her hand.

“The shower works,” Octavia says, eyeing them both up and down. “Everyone else is boarding the windows and looking for food so, uh… Get clean, I guess.”

Clarke thanks Octavia with a smile, taking the towels from her. Octavia looks around Clarke into the room, but Lexa’s back is facing her so Clarke doesn’t think she sees her crying. She knows Lexa hates crying in front of people, so she tries to get across to Octavia using only her eyes that everything is fine, it’s okay, nothing to see here, and luckily she gets it. She nods silently before turning around and walking back downstairs.

Clarke had a brief shower two days ago, so it’s probably more important for some of the others to shower before her, but she’s not going to miss an opportunity to get clean because who knows how long it’ll be until her next shower.

She thinks she hears Octavia say “they’re totally gonna bang” when she gets downstairs, before she hears Lexa tell her that she can shower first.

Clarke turns around, looking down at the towels before looking at Lexa.

“We should shower together,” she says. “To save water.”

Lexa smiles at her, and she asks her if she uses that line on all the girls, and Clarke is laughing as the two of them walk into the bathroom. It looks untouched, unlike the other bathrooms that they’ve seen in the past few days. Almost every other house they’ve stopped at has already been looted; the only things that were left behind were out-of-date packs of meat and stale bread.

She hears Lexa lock the door, and she puts both towels on the closed toilet lid before looking around the bathroom. The only sign of anything bad that has happened here is the crack in the mirror on the cabinet above the sink.

Clarke turns around, eyes landing on Lexa who is already staring at her.

“What?” she asks with a smile. She knows that Lexa’s ignoring the fact that she was just crying her eyes out a few minutes ago. But ignoring stuff like that is what Lexa does best, and Clarke understands that if she wanted to talk about it, she would have said something by now.

But Lexa is looking at her in a way that Clarke doesn’t recognize. She looks mesmerized. Thirsty. Her eyes look drained – maybe that’s because of the crying or the lack of sleep – but in a way that makes Clarke curious as to what’s going on inside her head. She’s normally good at reading Lexa, but right now, she’s not sure _what_ she’s thinking.

“Hey,” Clarke whispers. Then Lexa is stepping forward before Clarke has a chance to say anything else, and she pulls Clarke’s face towards her own as she leans in, closing the gap between them.

A shiver runs up Clarke’s spine as Lexa’s hands roam down her neck, over her shoulders and down until she finally settles them in the dip of Clarke’s back. And Clarke kisses her back with everything she can as her hands caress Lexa’s face. She can barely hold back her moan as Lexa pulls her closer, their hips pressing against each other before Lexa backs her up against the sink.

“We should shower,” Clarke breathes into her mouth as Lexa lifts her up onto the sink. She opens her legs so Lexa can stand in between them, and she smiles when she feels Lexa smile against her lips. And then Lexa is pulling back, and Clarke’s mouth chases hers before she realizes that Lexa is staring at her again with that same expression; hooded, tired, thirsty eyes. “What? Why do you keep looking at me like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like that.” Clarke points at her and grins when Lexa catches her hand and threads their fingers together.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“No?”

Lexa shakes her head with a smile, slowly leaning in to kiss Clarke again.

“I like kissing you,” Lexa whispers, one hand resting on Clarke’s thigh and the other playing with her hand. “You’re so…” Clarke bites at her bottom lip. “Enchanting,” she breathes out.

She feels Clarke smile against her lips.

“You sure do have a way with words.”

They’re interrupted by someone trying to open the door, and Clarke yells that she’s in here in case whoever it is tries to break the door down.

“My bad!” the voice says. It’s Harper. “Oh, do you know where Lexa is? Monty found some cool candles we think she’d like.”

Clarke smiles, looking at Lexa to see her already looking at her with an amused grin.

“She’s in here with me,” Clarke says. While the two of them haven’t officially announced their relationship, she is pretty sure the whole group knows they’re dating. Or… whatever they’re doing in a world like this.

Harper’s reply comes as a quiet “oh shit, my bad” before they hear footsteps running downstairs.

“Come on,” Lexa whispers. “Before anyone else tries coming in.”

She grabs Clarke’s waist to help her off of the sink, pulling her towards the bathtub. The shower curtain has little planets and rocket ships on it, which Clarke smiles at when Lexa pulls it out. And then Lexa’s turning around and holding the bottom of Clarke’s shirt and asking her “can I?” and Clarke suddenly feels nervous.

She nods though, and she lets Lexa pull her shirt up over her head, before neatly putting it on top of the basket next to the sink. She leans in to kiss Clarke again, and Clarke gasps when she feels Lexa’s fingers running gently down her stomach. Her hands land on Clarke’s top button on her jeans, and she unfastens it as she stops the kiss for a second. She rests her forehead against Clarke’s, breathing in deeply.

“Are you okay?” Clarke asks, hands caressing Lexa’s face, and she tries to ignore the way the hairs on the back of her neck stand up when Lexa’s fingers tickle over her abdomen.

“You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” Lexa murmurs in the small space between them, and Clarke’s breath hitches in her throat when Lexa pulls her closer by the waistband of her jeans.

She never guessed Lexa would be so open. Sure, she’s aware that Lexa tells it how it is, but that normally means telling people that they’re wrong about something or letting them know that their hair look terrible. She’s not used to this Lexa. This Lexa who tells Clarke everything about how she feels, dishes out compliments and whispers sweet nothings in the small amount of space between them when they’re alone.

Because of that, she finds herself feeling like she’s falling more and more in love with Lexa with every day that passes.

Instead of replying, Clarke kisses her again. This time more heated. This time she puts everything she can into the kiss because, God, she loves Lexa. More than she’s ever loved anyone in her life, she thinks.

She kisses her like it’s their last day on earth.

(It damn well could be.)

She lets Lexa pull her jeans down slowly, and she steps out of them before Lexa folds them and puts them on top of her shirt. Clarke’s bra is next, and then Lexa’s own sweater and jeans; every item being folded up and put on top of the clothes basket next to the sink.

“Do you really have to do that?” Clarke asks, as Lexa wraps her arms around her and leans in again.

“Do what?” She opens her mouth and kisses her, pushing her tongue against Clarke’s lips, and Clarke almost forgets about what she’d asked when Lexa pulls back to look at her; eyes hazy and lips pink.

“The clothes,” she says. “Do you have to put them on the basket?”

“They could get dirty on the floor,” Lexa replies innocently, and Clarke grins.

“They’re already covered in blood and guts, _genius_.”

Lexa shakes her head, and she opens her mouth to say something but closes it immediately. Instead, she leans in again, her hands running up Clarke’s sides until they’re resting just under Clarke’s breasts.

“Can I?” she asks, and all Clarke can do is nod. She loves how Lexa asks for permission to touch her. It makes her stomach clench and her heartbeat increase.

Lexa is slow and gentle, and Clarke has never been touched like this before. She’s never had someone take their time with her. Every person she’s been with has just wanted to dive straight in; to pull at clothes and kiss messily and not think about what Clarke wants.

What Clarke _wants_ is Lexa, and Lexa’s touch is light, soft, loving. She runs her hands up Clarke’s torso and slowly cups Clarke’s breasts, and it feels amazing to have someone touch her like they actually _want_ her too. And she can’t help but suck in a deep breath as she wraps her arms around the back of Lexa’s neck and kisses her deeper.

Lexa is a good kisser. Better than good. Her kisses are gentle and tender and reassuring; Clarke finds it easy to just melt into them because this all feels so normal. Like they were made for this. And Lexa’s hands are warm. They’re always warm.

And then they’re on her face again; caressing her cheeks so gently – so lovingly – that it makes Clarke want to cry.

Lexa pulls back, and the way she looks Clarke up and down makes Clarke squirm slightly. They both lose their underwear, and before Clarke knows it, Lexa is holding her hand out and helping her into the bathtub. Lexa gets in after her, and she leans in to turn the shower on, and Clarke lets out a gasp at how cold the water is.

“Shit,” Lexa laughs, breathing out quick, erratic breaths as she turns the temperature up. She doesn’t find a perfect temperature – it’s still a little colder than they’d like – but Clarke uses it as an excuse to get closer to Lexa.

Plus, the cold water is helping to quench the ache she has in between her legs so she doesn’t complain.

Lexa kisses her on the forehead as she reaches for the shampoo bottle on the shelf in the corner. She pours some out onto her hand, then some onto Clarke’s palm, before they both get to work on washing their own hair. They steal kisses every now and then, but they mostly wash themselves in silence, thankful for the peace and quiet. And for a while, they forget where they are. If they close their eyes, they can imagine that this isn’t some stranger’s house. They can imagine there aren’t any dead people walking around outside.

They can imagine, for a sweet moment, that they’re safe.

They figure that they should probably get out of the shower so that some of the others can have their turn. They don’t want to be the ones who’ve used up all the water when it’s already hard enough to find a house that still has working pipes.

They wrap themselves up in their towels, moving to the bedroom to see if there are any clothes they can take. Putting on dirty clothes covered in blood doesn’t sound like the best idea, especially since they’ve just got clean.

They guess the prior occupant had a teenage daughter, because there’s a wardrobe full of clothes that are luckily around Lexa and Clarke’s size. They do have their own clothes, but most of them have already been used, and most are covered in blood and dirt.

Lexa finds a pair of black sweatpants, a white tank top, and a red plaid shirt. Clarke puts on a pair of light grey sweatpants and a black sweater which is a little too big. But they’re comfy and clean, and that’s all that matters.

They make their way downstairs, and Clarke grins when she sees Murphy and Bellamy stood decorating a small Christmas tree.

“Where’d you get that?” she asks as she lets go of Lexa’s hand. Lexa moves over to the candles that are set on a cabinet in the living room, and Clarke’s eyes watch her, smiling.

“Lincoln got it from the attic while you two were in the shower,” Raven says, as she hands Bellamy a piece of tinsel, giving Clarke a pointed look. It makes Clarke blush and look away, and she doesn’t know why she’s so embarrassed. They hadn’t even done anything other than wash themselves.

(And make out a little, but that’s _it_.)

Instead of saying anything else though, she looks through past the double doors that lead to the kitchen, seeing Monty and Harper making some food.

She walks into the kitchen, smiling at all the food spread out on the table. “What is this?” she asks.

“Christmas dinner,” Harper says, smiling up at her for a second before going back to cutting up the chicken breast in her hand.

“Isn’t it out of date?”

“We found it in the freezer,” Octavia says from where she’s sitting at the table, observing Monty and Harper. “Chicken can last months if it’s frozen.”

Clarke takes a second to look at all the food. A dozen pieces of raw chicken which, she guesses, Harper is going to fry in the wok that is currently being heated up on the stove. There’s cans of beef, a few chopped up carrots and potatoes, some dried fruit, a bowlful of cashew nuts, beans, and some graham crackers.

Not exactly the perfect Christmas dinner, but it’s still something.

Part of her wants to tell them they should save all this food and ration it fairly. The other part of her thinks that they deserve this. It is Christmas, after all.

She sits next to Lexa when everyone decides to gather round the table when the food is ready. There are no Christmas lights or Christmas music – to be safe in case any walkers are near – but the tree in the living room and the decorations that Bellamy had put in the kitchen give at least a little spirit. Plus, Lexa’s wearing a red shirt. That’s as festive as they can get for now.

Clarke wonders why the decorations weren’t already up when they arrived. She used to put the decorations up on the first of December when she was younger. This whole thing only started two weeks ago. Unless the owners had already gotten sick and turned, before the sickness had even reached Florida.

Clarke tries not to think about that. Instead, she lets Octavia pour her some wine which she had found stashed in the back of the pantry – 3 bottles of red and 2 bottles of expensive white – and she puts on her biggest smile when Harper tells everyone “it’s not much, but Merry Christmas.”

Bellamy starts to say grace, and she closes her eyes as she holds Lexa’s and Lincoln’s hands.

“I’m not exactly religious,” Bellamy begins. “But God, if you’re up there. Give us a break, man.” Everyone laughs. “Um… We thank you for blessing us with this food. Or rather, we thank Harper and Monty for blessing us with this food.” Everyone laughs again. “It’s not much but it’s a meal. A meal we can share together as a family. Times are really rough right now but we’re making it through, one town at a time. Sadly, everyone isn’t here but we’re doing okay. We hope you’re looking after Maya up there. Please, help us make it to Chicago without taking anybody else away from us. Amen.”

Everybody says Amen as they let go of each other’s hands, and Clarke opens her eyes to see Jasper wiping a tear away. She smiles at him when he catches her eye, before she tucks into the food, thankful to whoever is up there for helping her find this little misfit family who are willing to travel across the country just for her.

She doesn’t notice that Jasper doesn’t eat anything all night and leaves the table early to get some air because he starts to feel sick.

//

They finally go to bed at 12AM, after a very heated game of Operation which was cut short because they were starting to get a little too loud.

After dinner, the eleven of them had moved to the living room. Lexa lit a few candles and scattered them around the room, while everyone got comfortable in the small space. And in any other circumstance, it would’ve felt cramped and way too crowded, but knowing that everyone was safe in one room was enough for everyone to ignore that feeling.

It was Miller’s idea to play Operation – Monty had found a few board games earlier – and everyone had agreed to play apart from Jasper, who decided to go to sleep on the sofa after he had started to get a headache. He had woken up after Octavia had all but screeched in victory when she finally removed the funny bone.

They figured that instead of carrying on and possibly attracting any unwanted visitors, it’d probably be best to go to sleep so they can continue with their journey nice and early in the morning.

It’s when Clarke shuts the door behind them, in the bedroom they were in earlier, that Lexa starts to kiss the back of Clarke’s neck, taking advantage of the fact that Clarke is facing away from her.

“I’ve been waiting to kiss you all night,” she whispers.

“ _Oh_. Is there something in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?” Clarke asks, and Lexa laughs into the back of Clarke’s neck.

Clarke turns around and leans against the door, reaching out to tug on Lexa’s shirt, pulling her closer. Her eyes are glossed over, and it’s only then that Lexa notices that maybe Clarke had a little too much wine earlier.

“You’re drunk,” Lexa says, and Clarke notices the disappointment in her voice.

“I had two glasses,” Clarke whispers with a shake of her head, “it takes more than that for me to get drunk.”

Lexa brings a hand up to caress Clarke’s face, looking into her eyes.

“Your eyes.”

“Make the stars look like they’re not shining?”

Lexa laughs before shaking her head, the pad of her thumb stroking over her cheekbone. “They’re watery,” she says.

“I’m just tired.”

Lexa’s eyes drift down to her lips, her head unconsciously moving closer to her as her other hand rests on Clarke’s hip.

“You okay?” Lexa asks.

“Yeah, I…” she pauses, swallowing as she buries her head in Lexa’s neck. “Just a little shook up about Maya still.”

“That’s understandable. She was your friend.”

Clarke sniffs up as she grazes her lips over the skin on Lexa’s neck, wondering how on earth she managed to get someone like Lexa to fall for her. She kisses the warm skin, one hand running up Lexa’s side, over her shoulder and into her hair, while her other hand stays on Lexa’s hip.

Lexa breathes out a sigh as she feels Clarke start to nip at the skin on her collarbone, immediately tilting her head to grant her more access. She winces in pain when Clarke bites at her neck. But then the pain turns into pleasure when Clarke sucks at the skin, and she knows for a fact that Clarke is marking her. It turns her on a lot more than it probably should.

She pulls Clarke’s face up to hers, kissing her again and again until she feels like her lips are going numb.

“You’re so beautiful,” Lexa whispers into Clarke’s mouth as she pushes Clarke back against the door. The hand on Lexa’s hip moves around to rest on the small of her back, pulling their hips together as her other hand caresses Lexa’s cheek. “I love kissing you,” she murmurs.

Clarke smiles against her mouth. “I love kissing you too.”

 _I love you, I love you, I love you_ , they both want to say.

She feels Lexa tug on the bottom of her shirt, and she moves her hands away from Lexa for a moment as she lifts her arms up, letting Lexa pull her shirt off.

“Is this okay?” Lexa asks, and Clarke nods as she goes back in for the kiss. This time her hands are on Lexa’s hips, with Lexa’s hands caressing her face, and she dips her hands into the waistband of Lexa’s sweatpants, smiling when she feels her breath catch against her mouth.

She pulls back before looking down at Lexa’s sweatpants, kneeling down as she slowly pulls them down her legs and throws them off to the side. She looks up to see Lexa quickly taking her plaid shirt off, leaving her in only her tank top and underwear. She stands up, her hands running up Lexa’s stomach and bringing the tank top with them. With a sharp intake of breath, Lexa lifts her arms and lets Clarke pull the top off with ease, throwing it down on the floor with the other clothes.

They quickly get rid of the rest of their clothes, fumbling with each other until they make it to the bed. Clarke pulls the sheets away, telling Lexa to get under them in case anyone decides to come in. She’d rather someone walk in on them with the covers over them than without. Plus the window is open slightly and there’s a slight cool breeze coming through.

It doesn’t take long for Clarke to get Lexa worked up underneath her. The occasional soft kiss placed under her ear, a nail scratching up her thigh, a hickey sucked into the top of her breast.

She’s pretty sure this is the most beautiful sight she’s ever seen. The most beautiful _Lexa_ she’s ever seen. Naked and writhing and trying not to moan loudly underneath her in case anyone in the house hears them. She knows for a fact that Octavia and Raven are in the other room across the hall, but she’s finding it harder and harder to be quiet with every minute that passes.

“ _God_ ,” Lexa moans, rolling her head back to press further into the pillow.

“You alright there?”

Lexa smiles, opening her eyes to look up at Clarke.

“You’re,” she sucks in a breath when Clarke’s fingers stroke lightly down her stomach, “God, you’re absolutely wonderful, Clarke Griffin.”

“So _formal_.”

Lexa leans up on her elbow, bringing one hand to wrap around the back of Clarke’s neck, bringing her in to another heated kiss. It’s urgent, and Lexa hopes it gets across what she’s trying to say to Clarke.

That she needs her.

That she’s simply infatuated with her.

That she’s hopelessly in love with her.

Clarke pushes her back down, smiling into the kiss again before kissing up Lexa’s jaw, delicate kisses pressed at the soft skin under her earlobe.

She stops at Lexa’s ear, letting out a breath.

“I want you so bad,” she all but moans, breath hot against Lexa’s ear, and Lexa’s breath hitches; her heart clenches in her chest, and her hips subconsciously push up into Clarke’s.

“I’m all yours,” Lexa murmurs. It’s husky and strained, and Clarke takes pride in knowing what she’s doing to Lexa.

“I don’t know how you do it,” Clarke whispers against her cheek, “but you make me want you more and more every day.”

Lexa’s eyes flutter shut, and she can’t take it anymore. She reaches down and grabs Clarke’s hand, leading it to where she needs Clarke the most. She feels Clarke breathing heavily against her cheek, and she moves her head so her mouth is touching Clarke’s earlobe.

“Please,” she breathes out. She feels like she’s already close from just having Clarke’s bare skin against her own, so when Clarke finally touches her, she can’t help the moan that she lets out.

Clarke shushes her by kissing her, and Lexa brings her hands up to caress Clarke’s face again as Clarke works Lexa up with her fingers. She’s good – probably the best, Lexa thinks – and she hasn’t even touched her for more than two minutes, but God, she’s never felt like this before.

So when Clarke removes her fingers, Lexa can’t help the groan of frustration that she lets out. And it’s only when she opens her eyes that she sees Raven and Octavia stood at the bedroom door with less than impressed looks on their faces.

“Really?” they both ask in unison, and if Lexa wasn’t so embarrassed right now, she’d probably laugh.

She thinks Raven and Octavia have just cockblocked them for cockblocking _them_.

“Some of us are trying to sleep here,” Raven says, hair messy and eyes squinted due to the bright bedside lamp in the bedroom, but Lexa can see the red tint on her cheeks and her neck.

“Sorry,” Clarke whispers to them shyly, pulling the covers further up her body as if trying to make them swallow her whole. Lexa just closes her eyes and buries herself behind Clarke, more frustrated at the fact that she was _so_ close.

Octavia tells them to keep it down, and Clarke nods before watching them shut the door.

“God,” Lexa breathes out. “I’m pretty sure they saw my sex face.”

Clarke laughs, turning around and looking at Lexa who is now laid back against the pillows again.

“For what it’s worth babe, I think your sex face is beautiful.”

Lexa shakes her head, and Clarke smiles as she puts her hand back on Lexa’s stomach.

“You want me to…”

“No,” Lexa shakes her head. “We’re never having sex. Ever. We’re gonna be celibate for the rest of our lives.”

Clarke smirks, pressing a kiss to Lexa’s temple before she gets up and picks up their clothes from the floor.

“If it makes you feel better, I think we interrupted Raven and Octavia before they interrupted us.” She slides the sweater over her head and puts her underwear back on, before throwing Lexa her tank top and sweatpants.

“That’s funny,” Lexa says. “But it doesn’t make me feel better.”

“We have all the time in the world,” Clarke says, but Lexa knows that it’s not fair to say that.

Anything could happen tomorrow.

She gets dressed again, albeit very reluctantly, but she knows that Clarke is doing them a favor, because she knows for a fact that if she so much as feels Clarke’s naked body against her own again, she won’t be able to resist the urge to pull Clarke on top of her and lead her hand to her center again like before.

They seem to melt together automatically when they get back into bed, Lexa’s back pressed against Clarke’s front as Clarke presses a kiss to her shoulder.

“Hey Lexa?”

“Yeah?”

“Merry Christmas.”

She smiles.

“Merry Christmas, Clarke.”

Lexa’s equally as content with falling asleep to the soothing sound of Clarke’s breathing, knowing that they’re both safe and together.


	5. Chapter 5

“ _Nothing is harder on the nerves than hope._ ”  
― Forrest Carr

* * *

 

**26th December 2015**

When they’re woken up in the middle of the night by screaming, they immediately think the worst.

Walkers have managed to break in and eat their friends and they’ll soon be coming for them, and for a second, Clarke wants to stay, wants to stay pressed against Lexa’s back and she wants to close her eyes until the crying and screaming downstairs stops and she wants to wake up and realize that, finally, this has all been one bad dream.

The other part of her is stumbling out of bed in the darkness, reaching out to turn the bedside lamp on as she watches Lexa get out of bed and grab her knife from where she had put it on the dresser yesterday.

She wants it to stop, _please, God, make it stop_ , she begs.

She follows behind Lexa as she opens the bedroom door and peaks out, seeing Raven and Octavia coming out of their temporary room. She makes eye contact with Raven and she sees in her eyes that whatever’s happening right now isn’t good, it’s definitely not good, it’s possibly the worst thing they’ve faced so far.

Gripping Lexa’s hand, she descends the stairs behind Raven and Octavia, and she pushes past them – despite Lexa trying to shield her from the horror show happening in front of them – and she gasps just as she witnesses Lincoln pull his knife out of the back of Jasper’s head.

His body falls to the floor with a thud that makes Clarke’s heart feel like it stops at that moment.

Her eyes meet Harper’s, and she hadn’t noticed before because she had been looking at Jasper – her _friend_ Jasper, who in fact wasn’t her friend Jasper any longer, but a monster who is lying dead on the living room floor with Monty crying above him – and she covers her mouth as she pushes past everybody standing around in shock.

“Harper!” She yells it or screams it or whispers it, she doesn’t know, kneeling down in front of her. She’s crying – they both are – and Clarke knows from previous experience with Maya that nothing can be done now and it scares her that she seems to have immediately accepted that. If the bite was anywhere else, maybe they could have amputated, but it’s not, it’s on her neck, and there’s nothing she can do to help her and it _hurts_.

Harper says her name, and Clarke wonders if she should get it over with now. Put Harper down, take away her pain, before she dies and turns into one of them and comes back as a monster like Jasper had – _when had that happened?_ – because it’s inevitable that it’s going to happen.

The other part of her brain tells her to wait, wait, _wait_. Wait to see if Harper will get better or wait to see if anyone else will bear the burden of mercy killing yet another one of their own.

She knows she’s reaching, but she’s stuck.

She doesn’t know what the hell to do.

She promised this girl she’d take care of her.

_She doesn’t know what to do._

She had no idea Jasper was bit. Has no idea why the hell he wouldn’t tell them he was bit. _When did he get bit?_ Instead, he decided to be selfish and wait until he turned so he could attack while everyone was asleep. _Had he planned this?_ Of course, Clarke isn’t certain that he planned this at all, but she’s angry. _Had he known?_ Angry at Jasper for not telling them and angry at herself for not keeping a closer eye on the group.

Harper’s breath is ragged, and there’s so much blood already pooling down the white Atlanta Hawks jersey she’d found in one of the rooms yesterday, and Clarke doesn’t know what the _hell_ to do.

Monty is beside her, crying as he hovers over Jasper’s body, and then he moves over to her. He cries some more as he reaches a hand out to get Harper to look at him, and there’s blood coming out of her mouth and the gurgling sounds she’s making almost make Clarke want to throw up, but she tells herself that she has to be strong. For Harper and for Monty and for everyone else in the group, who are all standing around not knowing what to do either.

She has to be strong.

_I have to be strong._

_You have to be strong._

The voice in her head sounds a lot like her father’s, which makes her cry even more.

Lexa is soon at her other side, putting a hand on the small of her back as she kneels in front of Harper. The hand feels foreign. Like there’s nothing that anyone can do to make Clarke feel like she’s even alive right now in this moment.

“Hey,” Lexa whispers to Harper, and Harper smiles at her before closing her eyes tight and gasping. “Look at me,” Lexa says gently, and all Clarke can do is cry, and watch as Lexa tries to help.

Harper opens her eyes and looks at Lexa, her breathing still ragged as Lexa cups Harper’s cheek.

“It’s okay,” Lexa whispers. “You’re okay. You can cry.”

Her tone is soft and so very gentle but hard at the same time – _just like Lexa_ – and Clarke’s positive that Lexa’s only talking to Harper right now, but she takes that as permission to cry even harder too. She lets out a sob, looking down at Harper who is trying her hardest to stay awake. Her head lolls from side to side and she looks like she’s in so much pain and _God_ , it’s Maya all over again. Monty puts his hand on Clarke’s shoulder and she can hear him trying to hold back his sobs as well.

Lexa watches Harper, waiting for any sign that it’s over. She’s not sure what to do. To kill Harper before she dies, to wait until she’s passed, or wait until she turns? She doesn’t want to risk leaving her or waiting to see if she’ll turn, just case anyone else gets injured when she inevitably does. And she knows that this isn’t her choice to make, but nobody else is saying or doing anything, and she doesn’t want Clarke or Monty to deal with the burden of having to kill their friend.

She doesn’t know what to do.

 _You know what to do_ , her mind tells her.

She looks at Clarke. She wants to close her eyes and when she wakes up, she wants Clarke to still be there but she wants them to be far away from here. Far away from their friends dying and far away from the danger that is not only outside but now seems to be creeping into their safe spaces.

_What do I do?_

_You know what to do._

It takes ten more minutes for Harper’s eyes to close and her breathing to stop, and it’s too soon. It’s over way too fast. She shouldn’t have died like this. Who’s going to keep track of the days? Who’s going to help Lexa find candles or help Clarke with a crossword puzzle or count how many walkers they’ve all killed?

Clarke sobs, and Monty hugs her as tight as he can.

 _Straight through the head, aim for the brain_ , Lexa thinks. You know what to do.

“Do you want me to?” she asks.

She’s done this countless times before. She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand and grips her knife tight in her hand.

Yes, but it’s different now, isn’t it? _Or is it?_ What’s the difference between killing someone you know and someone you don’t? It’s still murder, isn’t it? _No_. It’s not murder in a world like this but it’s still _killing_ and Lexa doesn’t know what to do.

_Please, help us make it to Chicago without taking anybody else away from us. Amen._

They’re not even halfway there.

“Wait,” Clarke says, grabbing Lexa’s hand before she can do anything. Her voice is hoarse and shaky, and it breaks Lexa’s heart. Breaks her heart knowing that Clarke’s just lost two more of her friends so quick, so fast, so soon, _too_ soon.

Clarke reaches out to Harper’s face, using two fingers to close Harper’s eyes.

“There’s a blessing we learned in class,” Clarke says. Lexa’s not sure who Clarke’s talking to but she listens intently. Listens to the way Clarke’s voice wavers and the way she pauses to collect herself. “A famous artist said it to his dying mother. It was Harper’s favorite. She used to write it on all of her pieces.”

Lexa watches Clarke pull her hand away, reaching down to hold Harper’s hand.

“In peace, may you leave this shore,” she whispers, quickly wiping a tear away with the back of her free hand. She clears her throat and puts on a brave voice. “In love, may you find the next. Safe passage on your travels. Until our final journey on the ground.” She sniffs and Monty joins in on the last part. “May we meet again.”

Lexa doesn’t bother to wipe the tear that falls down her cheek. She keeps her eyes on Clarke, watching in awe as Clarke wipes away Harper’s tears. She manages to swallow the lump in her throat as she watches Clarke pull her hands away to wipe her own tears, smearing a little blood on her cheek.

Lexa immediately reaches a hand out to wipe the blood away, Clarke’s tears helping to wash it off.

“I’m so sorry,” Lexa whispers, as she pulls her hand away. She brings the knife up to the side of Harper’s head. She doesn’t know who she’s apologizing to. Harper. Monty. Clarke. Herself. She clears her throat and Clarke looks away as she digs the knife into Harper’s skull.

She lets out a shaky breath and closes her eyes, and Clarke helps her pull the knife out, taking it out of her hands and throwing it down on the floor before wrapping her arms around Lexa’s shoulders.

“It’s okay,” Clarke whispers, pulling Lexa close. She kisses her head and closes her eyes. “It’s okay,” she repeats. “Thank you.”

Lexa doesn’t think she deserves a thank you, but she can’t really respond. She lets Clarke hug her, and then she lets Clarke turn around and hug Monty, and the whole room is deadly silent.

None of them sleep the rest of the night.

//

They hold a joint funeral for Jasper and Harper the next morning.

It’s Monty who does most of the talking this time, but he doesn’t cry, which Clarke thinks is sad. She never would have imagined they’d be numb to losing people. Sure, they’ve only lost three of their people so far, but they’ve all accepted that stuff like this is bound to happen now. That people are going to die and there’s nothing they can do to stop it.

He tells them all that he met Jasper in High School. That they’d met at a party when Jasper was smoking weed outside, and Monty had told him that you shouldn’t drink and smoke weed at the same time because it can be dangerous. Jasper had told him that the two dangers cancel each other out as he offered the blunt to him, and they both got high while everyone was inside playing two lies and a truth.

He tells them that he met Harper in Freshman year of college, and Clarke already knows the story because she was there. Because Monty and Harper are in some of her art classes and they always look so happy when they sit together in lectures and it hurts her not knowing it’ll be like that again. They’re about as close as Clarke is to Raven and Octavia, so she understands how much more heartbroken Monty is.

Her heart still hurts though. For everyone.

Miller holds Monty’s hand, and Lexa holds Clarke’s hand, and Octavia holds Raven’s hand. The service is bittersweet and at one point a walker trudges along, and Lincoln angrily throws his knife and it hits the walker perfectly in the middle of the forehead, dropping to the ground with a thud.

Nobody bats an eyelash.

The nine of them set off after Octavia lays some flowers on each of their graves, none of them speaking a word as they move on to the next city.

//

_“We hope you’re looking after Maya up there. And Jasper and Harper. Please, help us make it to Chicago without taking anybody else away from us. Amen.”_

//

**27th December 2015**

It’s a cool early morning in Emerson when Clarke decides to get up and go for a jog.

Since going to the gym is out of the question, she hasn’t been able to exercise much apart from walking from house to house and occasionally running from walkers. She misses her occasional morning runs though, and Lexa had found an iPod while she was rummaging through the drawers in the room they slept in last night, immediately giving it to Clarke before she went back to looking for anything useful.

Even though Lexa hasn’t been speaking much, it still made Clarke smile that she was thoughtful enough to give the iPod to her.

She already has her own pair of headphones which she’d packed when they first left their dorm, so after changing into a pair of shorts and a white tank top she found in one of the rooms, she puts her headphones in and sets off running.

 _Okay, wake up in the morning to the clear blue sky_  
Turn up the music when I hop in the ride  
The windows down let the whole world see  
Can't nobody rock it like little old me  
I'm the bomb and I'm 'bout to blow up

She turns the song up as she looks around her. There’s something oddly satisfying about going for a run in the middle of the end of the world. There’s nobody around to judge her. No one to catcall her. No one to stand in her way as she jogs up the footpath. In fact, there’s no cars around either, so she looks behind her before she diverts into the middle of the road, letting out a content sigh as she speeds up slightly.

It’s 6:35AM, and the sun has already risen in the sky by the time she’s been running for twenty minutes. She hasn’t taken any turns, so luckily she’s not lost and she won’t have any problems getting back.

For a sweet moment, she feels content.

She breathes in a deep breath of air as she slows down to a stop, putting her hands on her waist as she looks around her. No walkers. No people. No animals. No nothing.

It’s the most peaceful she’s felt since this all started.

Her brain is all over the place, and part of her wants to carry on running and never turn back. But the thought of the others waiting up for her makes her heart clench and she thinks she should probably head back because her friends – her _family_ – have come all this way with her, _for_ her, and she’d never abandon them like that.

She’s breathing heavily, and she doesn’t recognize the song playing on the iPod but she lets it play out as she starts to walk back to the house.

She knows she’s in trouble as soon as she sees Lexa sitting on the front porch when she gets back, and it doesn’t take long for her to figure out why she looks so upset.

She woke up and Clarke wasn’t there.

Clarke would be upset too.

She approaches her slowly, making herself known by tapping on the wooden beam and Lexa jumps as she pulls her knife out. She relaxes when she sees it’s Clarke though, and Clarke sits down beside her with a sigh.

“Hey,” Clarke says. It’s barely a whisper, the product of not talking much for two days. It’s almost seven, and Clarke didn’t expect Lexa or any of them to be up yet.

She’s a little concerned when Lexa doesn’t reply.

“You okay?” Clarke asks, putting her hand on Lexa’s thigh like she usually does when they sit next to each other. She feels Lexa tense up a bit but relaxes a few seconds after. It’s worrying. “Lex?”

“You weren’t there.” Lexa says, and Clarke sighs.

“I thought you’d want to be alone for a while.”

“I was scared.”

“I only went for a run.”

“You could have _died_.”

“Lexa–“

“–Don’t.” Lexa recoils away, pushing Clarke’s hand away, pushing _Clarke_ away. She closes in on herself, and Clarke moves back, her stomach tightening knowing that Lexa doesn’t want her comforting touch. And it hurts more than she expected – more than she thought anything ever could – knowing that Lexa was scared when she woke up without her by her side.

She hates herself a little bit more.

Instead of saying anything else, because it’s clear Lexa doesn’t want her here right now, Clarke stands up and goes back inside to change. Maybe if she distracts herself, she won’t think about the fact that it feels like she’s fucked everything up between them already.

Of course, Raven and Octavia are stood at the door when she gets inside, and she tries to move past them but they won’t budge. The least she can do is hear them out. They are her best friends after all, despite how annoying some of their opinions can be.

“Okay, out with it,” she says, aggravated. “Tell me I’m a dick and that I don’t deserve her.”

Raven shakes her head.

“You don’t get it, do you?” Octavia asks, her tone surprisingly calm.

Clarke frowns.

“What?”

“For some reason that girl out there is in love with you,” Raven says, pointing, and Octavia nods in agreement. “We know we lost people yesterday, and trust us, we’re as torn up about it as you are. So is Lexa. And she needs you as much as you need her right now.”

“She’s grieving too but that doesn’t mean she wants to be alone.”

Clarke looks down in shame, embarrassment, disgust. Instead of asking Lexa what she needed, Clarke had just assumed that Lexa wanted to grieve on her own, and it cost her Lexa’s trust in the process. Sure, it was her friend – _friends_ – who had died, but Lexa was hurting too. Lexa – poor, sweet, loving and caring Lexa – had mercy killed Harper just so Clarke didn’t have to bear the burden of killing her own friend, and Clarke was too caught up in her own selfish grief to notice that Lexa was hurting just as much as she was.

She was so hung up on her own feelings that she hadn’t considered Lexa’s.

Lexa trusted that she’d stay with her and Clarke ignored it.

“I fucked up didn’t I?” Clarke asks, and she doesn’t know whether to be mad or relieved when Raven shakes her head.

“You’re just stupid, that’s all.”

Clarke agrees, but she doesn’t voice that.

“Just apologize to her,” Octavia says. “Let her know you won’t leave her.”

Clarke wonders how the hell everything went to shit so quickly.

//

Clarke’s obstinacy lasts until three in the afternoon – five hours of being on the road – before she can’t take not talking to Lexa any longer.

Lexa had apologized to her earlier, but her stubborn ass refused to hear it and had just carried on walking as she looked out for any walkers in their vicinity. She didn’t deserve Lexa’s apology but even when Lexa gave her it, she had turned her down, and she has no idea why. Despite everything Octavia and Raven had said, and despite Clarke telling herself to respect Lexa as much as she respects her, she hadn’t. She hadn’t listened to Raven or Lexa _or_ herself, and Raven’s voice in her head telling her she’s stupid plays over and over like a broken record.

She hates seeing Lexa look so upset, especially knowing that she’s the cause of it.

She just needed time because Lexa has been by her side since day one and she just needed to breathe.

She speeds up, catching up to Lexa, and she’s about to slip her hand into Lexa’s before she realizes that maybe Lexa doesn’t want that. Maybe Lexa is mad at her, _still_ mad at her.

So she goes for the next best thing.

“Hey,” she says, nudging Lexa. Lexa turns to look at her. “So a girl gave her girlfriend ten puns, hoping that one of them would make her laugh.” She hears Lexa sigh. “Sadly, no pun in ten did.”

Lexa laughs, but immediately shuts her mouth and looks straight ahead. But Clarke notices, and she nudges Lexa again and again, until Lexa looks at her.

“That was terrible,” Lexa says.

“ _You’re_ terrible.”

“I forgive you.”

“I haven’t apologized.”

“I don’t care. I still forgive you.”

“I don’t deserve your forgiveness,” Clarke whispers as she links their fingers together. “I’m really sorry, Lexa.”

“I forgive you.”

“I don’t deserve it.”

“Too bad.”

“I won’t do it again. I won’t leave you.”

Lexa squeezes her hand. “You called me your girlfriend.”

Clarke smiles as she leans up to kiss Lexa on the cheek.

//

**31st December 2015**

By New Year’s Eve – Clarke has made it her personal duty to keep track of the days, like Harper had – they pass through Nashville and stop at a small abandoned house in Clarksville. Raven had excitedly announced the name of the town when she saw it on the map, and despite Clarke’s faux excitement, she wasn’t exactly bothered. She just wanted to settle down and sleep because they’ve been walking none stop for almost fourteen hours and the ache in her legs is agonizing.

There are decidedly less walkers than there had been down in Florida and Atlanta which Clarke is more than thankful for. They had managed to travel for four days without any more casualties or deaths or even accidents, and Clarke had written it down in Harper’s journal that they were doing _good_.

She wonders though, when it had become normal to keep track of the days based on whether people have died.

The house is small and completely empty. Void of any supplies or medicines or anything useful. No clothes, no hot water, no electricity, no food, no nothing. They consider looking for somewhere else to stay but it’s already starting to get dark out and it’s way too cold now anyway.

It starts to snow when they’re all eating cans of cold beans that they had found in the house they stayed in yesterday. (Gross, but food is hard to come by lately, and they’re slowly but surely running out of food that’s still in date so this is the best thing they have right now.)

Raven’s the one who notices, telling everyone that it’s snowing and it’s hauntingly beautiful, that it’s pretty despite the fact that the world is being destroyed with every passing day, and Clarke agrees.

 _Haunting but beautiful,_ she thinks. _Like Christmas in the apocalypse._

Not a minute later, Miller appears with a monopoly box, and Clarke smiles when she remembers that she used to play the game all the time with her family and Wells and his dad when she was younger, and she was always the top hat.

“I’m the top hat,” she says, slipping onto the floor when Miller puts the box on the coffee table in the middle of the room as Raven announces that she’s the dog.

“I’m the thimble,” Octavia says, shuffling over to the table.

“Who the fuck wants to be a thimble?” Miller asks with a laugh.

“Octavia always wanted to be the thimble when we were younger because she was obsessed with Peter Pan.”

“Oh _look_ , it’s throwback time with big brother Bellamy.”

Clarke smiles as she watches Bellamy throw a pillow at Octavia and it’s _nice,_ that they can still joke around and have fun, despite the obstacles they’re facing. It’s rare that they smile genuinely these days, so Clarke makes sure to cherish the moment.

When she turns around and sees Lexa looking at her with a fond smile, she thinks that just for tonight, they’re going to be okay.

//

Sometime between the first and second Monopoly game, Lexa had found herself retreating from the room to go to the toilet.

She checked out one of the smaller bedrooms afterwards and found out that the roof was accessible if she climbed out of the bedroom window, which is where she found herself for what seemed like hours while everybody was having fun downstairs, hugging her body as she tried to keep warm. It had stopped snowing and the snow wasn’t too thick on the roof but it was still cold, and she didn’t have much insulation except from her leather jacket which she was sat on.

For a split second, she thought about whether she would turn into a walker if she let herself catch the flu.

She’s looking out at the dark skyline when she hears footprints behind her and she turns around, surprised to see Monty looking at her with a shy smile.

“Hey Monty,” she gives a small, welcoming smile. At least, she tries. She’s doesn’t really know Monty and she doesn’t think it’s appropriate to bond with someone over their friend that she killed, so she doesn’t really know what to do or say. “You okay?”

“Can you promise me something?”

Lexa frowns. So Monty doesn’t beat around the bush. “What is it?”

“If I ever get bit…”

She swallows. “Monty.”

“You have to put me down. Just like you did with Harper.” He puts his hands in his pockets and she clenches her teeth. “You can’t let me turn into one of those things.”

It’s an odd request but she gets it. She’s the only one in the group Monty doesn’t really know, and she knows that Monty doesn’t want one of his friends to deal with having to kill him.

“Promise me, Lexa.”

“Okay,” she says after a few seconds of silence. “Only if you promise to do the same for me.”

Monty smiles, and it surprises Lexa when he walks over to her and leans down to hug her. It feels strange and tense and he’s freezing but she appreciates it.

“Why don’t you want Miller to do it?” she asks as he pulls back. She knows the answer though.

“He wouldn’t be able to do it.”

“You don’t know that.”

“It would kill him,” Monty says. “He may seem like he doesn’t care but he does. Way more than he lets on.”

“Would you do it for him?”

“I’m not sure if I could.”

“I understand.”

“You wouldn’t be able to put Clarke down, would you?”

She thinks about it for a moment before she shakes her head. “It would kill me.”

They’re interrupted by a small knock on the roof floor, and Lexa looks around Monty to see Clarke. She couldn’t have stopped the smile from forming on her face if she tried. Clarke looks beautiful. She always does.

Monty leaves them with a shy wave, telling Lexa he appreciates the talk.

“So,” Clarke says, settling down next to Lexa. “You and Monty are getting along, I see.”

“He just wanted to talk.”

“You alright?”

_No._

Lexa nods, shivering slightly, and she smiles when Clarke drapes a blanket around her which she had brought up, knowing full well that Lexa wouldn’t be wearing appropriate clothing for this surprisingly cold weather.

Clarke moves closer to her and as if on instinct, Lexa’s arm slides around Clarke’s waist as Clarke rests her head on Lexa’s shoulder.

The two don't say anything for a while, opting to sit in silence instead, happy to just be together for a while. It’s not awkward. It’s not uncomfortable. It’s normal. It’s _them_.

“It’s one minute to midnight, you know.”

“Is it?”

She nods, smiling when Lexa pulls her closer. She shivers, and Lexa wraps the blanket around the both of them as she leans up to press a kiss to Lexa’s jaw.

They sit there for a few more seconds before Clarke breaks the silence, and Lexa feels like her heart stops beating when she hears Clarke whisper those words against her skin in the small amount of space between them. As if it’s a secret that only Lexa is allowed to know, and if that’s the case, then Lexa is happy to keep it all to herself.

“I love you, you know that, right?”

Of course she knows it. It still makes her stomach flip though when Clarke nuzzles into her side knowing, that this girl _loves_ her.

“How come you’re telling me this now?”

“Because I don’t know how long we have left and I need you to know before one of us–”

“Hey,” Lexa interrupts her, nudging her shoulder so Clarke will look at her. She grabs Clarke’s hand, squeezing it as she looks into Clarke’s eyes. They’re so blue, she almost forgets what she’s about to say. “Don’t talk like that,” she whispers.

“I just need you to know, okay?” Clarke says. “Just… you _have_ to know.”

“I _know_ , Clarke. Of course I know.”

“I don’t know what I would have done without you during all of this.”

Lexa smiles, leaning her forehead against Clarke’s as she closes her eyes. “You would have survived. I know you, Clarke.”

“Lexa?”

“Hmm?”

“Happy New Year.”

Lexa opens her eyes, and all she can see is Clarke Griffin.

Clarke Griffin, who _loves_ her.

“Happy New Year.”

//

**2nd January 2016**

“Do you believe in soulmates?”

Lexa looks up from her book, seeing that Clarke has stopped drawing and is now staring at her with a look that Lexa has come to recognize as her ‘I’m about to get deep’ look. So Lexa closes her book and sits up on the couch opposite Clarke, asking her why she’s asking.

“I just want to know if you think there’s someone out there for everyone. That there are couples who are _meant_ to be together.”

“I believe that in relationships,” Lexa says, “we grow to fit together. We build up the love – all the love we have – until there’s either too much of it or just enough to be almost perfect.”

“Have you ever loved someone too much?” Lexa swallows, shaking her head. Clarke looks down at her drawing, licking her lips before sighing. “Do you think you’ll ever love me too much?”

Lexa smiles, standing up to go sit on the arm of the chair that Clarke resides in.

“I think I love you the perfect amount,” she says, reaching out to touch Clarke. She cups her cheek, rubbing her thumb across her cheekbone.

“Do you think we’re soulmates?”

She doesn’t mention the fact that Lexa had just told her she loves her.

Of course, her heart pounds harder in her chest and she feels like her stomach is going to explode but she manages to keep it cool as Lexa sinks down onto the chair. It’s big enough for the two of them, but it’s still a tight fit, and she throws her legs over Clarke’s own as she wraps her arms around her, leaning in to kiss her cheek.

“Soulmates or not, I’m heavily in love with you.”

“Heavily?”

Lexa grins, leaning in to kiss Clarke’s jaw. “Heavily,” she repeats. “Undeniably.” She places a kiss on Clarke’s neck. “Unquestionably.” A kiss on Clarke’s collarbone. “Irrefutably.”

Clarke sucks in a gasp as Lexa nips at her collarbone, tilting her head to expose more skin. And she smiles when she feels Lexa pull her closer, kissing her way down to the top of her shirt.

“Lex,” she smiles as Lexa buries her head in her cleavage.

“I love your boobs too,” Lexa whispers, and all Clarke can do is laugh as she strokes the back of Lexa’s head.

They’re definitely soulmates.

But they’ve come to learn that in a world like this, as annoying as it is, that happy moments don’t last long. That’s why Clarke chastises herself for losing herself in this moment, only for it to come crumbling down when they hear a gunshot from outside.

“Bellamy,” Clarke grunts, “I swear to God.”

She gets up, instantly jumping when Lincoln bursts through the door carrying Raven in his arms.

_No._

**Author's Note:**

> hey i hope u liked this, u can follow me on tumblr @ clarkestiddys & ask me q's or suggest headcanons for this au if u want. thank u for reading!


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